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JSonion 

HENRY    FROWDIC 

Oxford  University  Press  Warehousf. 

Aaien  Corner,  E.G. 


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ISAAC      CASAUBON 


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ISAAC    CASAUBON 


1559-1614 


O    DOCTIORUM   QUICQUID   EST   ASSURGITE 
HUIC    TAM   COLENDO ,  NOMINI ! 


BV 

MARK     PATTISON 

LATE    RECTOR    OF    LINCOLN    COLLEGE 


SECOND  EDITION 


O;ffor5 

AT   THE   CLARENDON   PRESS 
1892 

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PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 


The  first  edition  of  Mr.  Pattison's  Isaac  Casaubon, 
published  by  Messrs.  Longman  in  1875,  has  for  some 
years  been  out  of  print,  and,  in  response  to  the  expression 
of  a  widely  felt  desire,  the  Clarendon  Press  now  offers 
a  second  edition  to  the  public.  In  the  preparation  of 
this,  use  has  been  made  of  some  additions  and  corrections 
left  in  manuscript  by  the  author  himself,  as  well  as  of 
suggestions  communicated  to  him  by  various  friends. 
A  few  trifling  errors  have  been  silently  corrected,  and 
some  additional  notes  inserted.  These  notes  are  almost 
entirely  from  the  hands  of  Mr.  R.  C.  Christie  and 
Mr.  I.  Bjrwater,  and  are  in  all  cases  indicated  by  square 
brackets  [  ].  The  twelfth  section,  on  the  Descendants  of 
Isaac  Casaubon,  is  written  by  Mr.  Christie ;  the  index  is 
the  work  of  Mr.  C.  E.  Doble. 

For  the  general  editorial  superintendence  of  this  reprint 
the  present  writer  is  responsible.  His  thanks  are  due 
to  Mr.  F.  W.  Pattison,  for  the  loan  of  his  brother's  various 
papers  and  notes  bearing  on  the  subject;  to  Professor 
J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  for  communications  and  references; 
and  especially  to  Mr.  Christie,  Mr.  Bywater,  and 
Mr.  Doble,  for  their  assistance  in  reading  the  sheets 
as  they  passed  through  the  press. 

HENRY   NETTLESHIP. 
Oxford : 
December  14,  1891. 


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TABLE    OF   CONTENTS 


SECTION  PACE 

I.  Parentage  and  education.     1559 — 1578              .  3 

II.  Geneva.     1578—1596       .                  ....  8 

III.  Montpellier.     1596—1599      ...  76 

IV.  Paris.     1600—1610          .                  ....  134 
V.  London.     1610—1614       .                                              .262 

VI.  Casaubon  on  Baronius          ....  322 

VII.  London;  Ely;  Cambridge.     1610 — IGl-l       .  342 

VIII.  Visit  to  Oxford.     1613          .                                   .  354 

IX.  London.     1610—1614  {continued)    .         .         .  373 

X.  Last  illness;  death;  characteristic.      1614    .  412 

XI.  Chronological      list     of      works      by      Isaac 

Casaubon 475 

XII.  On  the  descendants  of  Isaac  Casaubon   .  485 


Index 487 


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The  sources  for  the  biography  of  Isaac  Casaubon  are 
unusually  numerous  and  detailed.  Indeed,  no  other 
personage,  eminent  in  letters,  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
can  be  mentioned,  for  whose  history' there  exist  materials 
equally  rich. 

These  sources  are  partly  manuscript,  partly  printed. 

I.  MSS. 

1.  Advers. — Sixty  volumes  of  Adversaria   preserved   in  the 

Bodleian  Library. 

2.  BuRNEY  MSS. — Seven  volumes  of  letters  addressed  to  Casau- 

bon by  his  numerous  correspondents ;  preserved  in  the 
Burney  collection  in  the  British  Museum. 

3.  BiBL.  Nat. — The  National  Library  in  Paris  contains :    (i) 

The  series  of  letters  from  Casaubon  to  de  Thou,  some 
confidential  portions  of  which  were  omitted  purposely  in 
Van  Almeloveen's  edition.  (2)  Two  independent  sets  of 
notes,  taken  by  hearers,  of  his  lectures  on  Herodotus. 
(3)  Other  notes  on  the  Anthology,  etc. 

4.  Geneva  mss. — The  archives  of  the  city  of  Geneva  contain : 

(i)  The  register  of  births,  deaths,  and  marriages.  (2)  The 
minute  books  of  the  Petit  Conseil.  The  city  of  Geneva  has 
had  the  singular  good  fortune  of  never  having  been  taken, 
sacked,  or  burnt.  The  series  of  order  books  of  the  Coun- 
cil is  complete.  For  the  period  of  Casaubon's  residence 
these  books  form  our  principal  authority.  The  entries 
relating  to  the  Academy  and  its  professors  are  not  nu- 
merous, but  they  are  significant,  and  enable  us  to  form 
a  tolerably  accurate  conception  of  Casaubon's  position, 
occupations,  and  share  in  the  general  misery  of  the  citizens 

B 

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of  Geneva.  I  take  this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  my 
great  obligations  to  M.  Theophile  Dufour,  who  not  only 
guided  my  researches  in  this  register,  but  most  hand- 
somely put  into  my  hands  the  whole  of  the  extracts  from 
it,  which  he  had  himself  made  with  a  view  to  illustrate 
the  history  of  Casaubon. 


2.  PRINTED  DOCUMENTS. 

Eph.  —  Ephemerides  Isaaci  Casauboni,  ed.  J.  Russell,  2  vols. 
8vo,  Oxon.  e  Typographeo  Academico,  1850. 

Of  this  diary  a  full  account  will  be  given  in  the  course 
of  the  narrative. 
Ep.  =  Isaaci  Casauboni  Epistolae  cur.  Th.  Janson  ab  Almeloveen, 
fol.  Rot.  1709. 

This  volume  contains  mo  letters  written  by  Casaubon 
to  his  friends  and  correspondents,  and  50  replies  by  them. 

Mer.  Cas.  PiETAS=Merici  Casauboni  .  .  .  Pietas  contra  male- 
dicos  patrii  nominis,  4to,  Lond.  1621,  also  reprinted  in  the 
volume  of  Epistolse  1709. 

BuRM.  SYLL.  =  Sylloge  Epistolarum  a  viris  illustribus  scriptarum, 
etc.,  5  vols.  4to,  Leid.  1727. 

Single  letters  of  Casaubon  are  to  be  found  scattered  about 
in  various  published  volumes  of  correspondence.  The  valu- 
able series  of  Scaliger's  letters  to  Casaubon  is  printed  in 

ScAL.  Ep.  =  Scaligeri  Epistolae,  8vo,  Lugd.  Bat.  1637. 

Bull.  Soc.  de  l'Hist.  Prot.  =  Bulletin  de  la  Socidt6  de  I'Histoire 
Protestante  de  la  France,  17  vols.  8vo. 

Mem.  Soc.  GEN.  =  M6moires  et  Documens  publics  par  la  Soci6te 
d'Histoire  et  d'Archdologie  de  Geneve,  18  vols.  8vo. 

Both  these  series  contain  original  documents  which  are 
of  use  in  completing  our  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  the 
Protestants  in  the  latter  end  of  the  i6th  century. 

Gr^nus— Fragmens  biographiques  et  historiques  extraits  des 
Registres  du  Conseil  d'Etat  de  la  Repubhque  de  Geneve  des 
1535  a  1793,  Gen.  1815. 

Other  references  will  probably  be  sufficiently  full  to  ex- 
plain themselves. 


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I. 

PARENTAGE  AND  EDUCATION. 

1559— 1578. 

Isaac  Casaubon  was  born  at  Geneva,  February  18, 
(8  O.S.),  1559,  being  thus  younger  than  Joseph  ScaHger 
by  eighteen  years. 

He  was  the  son  of  Arnold  Casaubon  and  Jehanne 
Mergine  [nee)  Rousseau^-  They  were  emigrants  who 
had  to  fly  for  their  Hves  from  Gascony^,  where  Arnold 
had  a  narrow  escape  from  being  burnt  alive.  The  per- 
secuting edict  of  Chateaubriand  (1551)  was  outstripped 

'  Geneva  mss.  Reg.  de  baptesmes :  '  Ce  lo  febvrier  fut  baptise  Isaac  fils  de 
Arnaud  Casaubon  et  de  Mergine  sa  femme  presente  par  Francois  Masdres 
(Eglise  de  St.  Gervais).'  But  the  certificate  of  this  entry  in  Advers.  9.  415  has 
Me«gine,  and  the  entry  of  the  baptism  of  Sara,  December  8,  1556,  gives 
MjMgine.  [The  late  M.  H.  Bordier,  in  the  article  on  Casaubon  in  the  second 
edition  of  Z.«  France  Protestante  (1882),  gives  the  name  of  Arnold  Casaubon's 
wife  as  Mengine.  ' Mengine,'  he  virrites,  'est  le  feminin  de  Menge,  et  S.  Menge 
ou  S.  Minge,  traduction  romane  de  Memmius  (on  dit  aussi  saint  Memmie)  fut  le 
premi*  apotre  chretien  de  la  Champagne.'  For  the  other  children  of  Arnold 
and  Mengine  Casaubon,  see  note  appended  at  the  end  of  this  section.] 

^  Ep.  453  ;  '  Je  nasquis  I'an  1559,  8  F^vrier  dans  Geneve,  ou  mes  bons  p6re 
et  m^re  s'etoient  retirez  de  Gascongne,  ayant  failli  d'estre  bruslez  a  Bourdeaux.' 
Cf.  ep.  879:  'ex  Aquitania.'  Notwithstanding  these  explicit  passages,  M. 
Nisard  (Triumvirat  Litt.  p.  310),  and  tie  biographical  compilations  generally, 
make  Arnold  Casaubon  fly  from  Bourdeaux  in  Dauphine.  The  source  of  the 
error  is  the  Latin  life  by  the  usually  accurate  Van  Almeloveen,  prefixed  to  his 
Epistolae  1709.  Isaac's  own  statement,  sufficiently  explicit,  is  confirmed  by 
the  '  Registre  d'habitation,'  Geneva  mss.,  in  which  Arnold's  name  stands  as 
'  Arnaud  Casaubon  de  Montfort,  diocese  Dax  en  Gascogne.'  The  entry  is  dated 
II  janv.  1557.  Montfort  is  conjectured  by  M.  Th.  Dufour,  to  whom  I  owe  this 
extract  (L'lnterm^diaire,  3.  76),  to  be  Montfort-en-Chalosse,  chef-lieu  de  canton, 
d^p.  Landes. 

B  2 

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4  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sec*. 

by  the  fanaticism  of  the  religious  mob,  who  called  for  a 
constant  supply  of  new  victims.      The  Huguenots  were 
flying  in  every  direction,  and  Arnold  Casaubon  had  found 
shelter  at  Geneva.      He  had  reached  this  city  of  refuge 
before  December  1556,  when  his  first  child  was  baptized. 
The  family  of  Casaubon  was  of  old  gascon  stock ;   in 
some  of  its  branches  noble  ^.     The  name  is  probably  to  be 
traced  to  the  town  of  Cazaubon,  on  the  Douze  (dep.  Gers), 
a  few  miles  from  Mont  de  Marsan.     Arnold  Casaubon 
was  received  as  'habitant'  of  Geneva,  January  11,  1557, 
and  at  some  later  period  he  must  have  been   admitted 
'bourgeois,'  as  his  son  Isaac  is  afterwards  described  as 
'  citoien.'     In  the  old  Genevese  constitution  the  sons  and 
descendants  of  one  who  had  been  admitted  'bourgeois' 
were  entitled  to  full  civic  rights.     Arnold  did  not  stay 
long  at  Geneva.    A  protestant  congregation  was  organising 
itself  at  Crest,  a  small  town  on  the  Drome  (dep.  Drome), 
a  few  leagues  above  the  confluence  of  that  river  with  the 
Rhone.      As    Mad^    Casaubon    was    from    that   part    of 
Dauphine,  her  husband  was  probably  known  to  the  re- 
formed party  in  the  neighbourhood.     He  accepted  a  call 
to  be  pastor  of  the  church  of  Crest,  in  1561.     The  child- 
hood of  Isaac  was  passed  in  the  valleys  of  Dauphine, 
amid  the  hardships  and  perils  incident  to  the  hfe  of  a 
Huguenot  minister   during  the   wars    of  religion.      His 
father  was  his  only  instructor  till  he  was  nineteen.    Arnold 
had  scholarship,  and  some  reading.    He  had  been  brought 
up  in  a  celebrated  school,   the   College   of  Guienne,  at 
Bourdeaux.     He  must  have  been  there  in  1547,  at  which 
time   Muretus,  with   a   brilliant  staff  of  colleagues,  was 
teacher  there.     The  man  who  could  recommend  s'trabo 
as  instructive  reading  to  his  son^  must  have  known  more 
than  the  rudiments  of  greek.     But  the  father's  time  was 

'  Bertrand  de  Vignolles  Sieur  de  Casaubon  Marquis  de  Vignolles,  b   1.6, 
wrote :  Memoires  des  choses  passees  en  Guienne. 
"  Strabo,  1586,  praef. :  '  Optimi  parentis  hortatu.' 


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I.]  PARENTAGE  AND  EDUCATION.     1559-1578.  5 

engrossed  by  his  flock.  His  talent  and  experience  drew 
upon  him  much  of  the  afifairs  of  the  scattered  congre- 
gations of  Dauphine  in  those  critical  years.  He  was  able 
to  be  but  little  at  home.  And,  even  when  he  was  with  his 
family,  it  might  be  but  to  fly  with  them  to  the  hills. 
When  Isaac  was  nine  years  old,  he  was  able  to  speak  and 
write  latin.  Just  then,  his  father  was  called  away  to 
attend  the  contingent,  which  Dauphine  had  to  furnish 
to  the  general  levy  of  the  Huguenots.  The  monstrous 
edict  of  Saint-Maur,  September  28,  1563,  in  which  the 
government  unblushingly  declared  that  former  edicts  of 
toleration  had  been  intended  to  be  revoked  as  soon  as  it 
was  safe  to  do  so,  had  shown  the  protestants  of  France 
that  they  had  to  choose  between  civil  war  and  extermina- 
tion, and  they  were  once  more  under  arms.  Casaubon, 
the  father,  was  absent  this  time  three  years.  When  he 
returned  to  Crest,  Isaac  was  found  to  have  forgotten  all 
he  had  learnt.  If  what  Meric  Casaubon  relates  of  his 
father's  precocity  be  true,  perhaps  it  was  as  well  that 
lessons  were  suspended  for  the  three  years  from  nine  to 
twelve.  For  when  the  lessons  were  resumed,  Meric 
relates  ^,  the  boy  '  threw  himself  into  study  with  such 
ardour,  that  if  he  had  not  been  checked  by  his  father,  his 
health,  if  not  his  life,  would  have  been  endangered.'  He 
had  got  as  far  as  greek  grammar,  and  was  having  his 
first  exercises  in  parsing,  in  Isocrates  '  ad  Demonicum,' 
when  the  news  of  the  S.  Bartholomew  (August,  1572) 
drove  them  into  the  hills  again.  The  greek  lessons  were 
continued  in  the  cave  where  they  sheltered;  'in  silvis 
miseri,  ingenti  tamen  animo,'  says  Meric. 

When  they  could  return  to  their  home  again,  Arnold 
Casaubon  was  too  much  engrossed  by  the  urgent  affairs 
of  that  dreadful  crisis  to  have  time  for  teaching  his  son. 
Isaac,  however,  was  launched,  and  struggled  on  for  him- 
self    For  five  years,  from. his  14th  to  his  19th  year,  he 

'  M.  Casaubon,  '  Pietas,'  p.  72. 


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6  ISAAC  CAS  A  UBON.  [Sect.  I. 

had  no  teacher,  and  but  few  books.  As  an  example  of 
piety  and  severe  hfe,  he  owed  much  to  his  father,  whose 
memory  he  ever  cherished  with  affection  ^.  Writing  to  a 
friend  in  1613,  twenty-seven  years  after  his  father's  death, 
he  says : — '  To  my  father  I  owe  all  I  have  since  learnt. 
Could  you  know  the  story  of  his  life,  you  would  know 
how  unworthy  I  am  to  bear  the  name  of  a  man  so  wise 
and  experienced.'  But  the  want  of  regular  training  Isaac 
always  considered  to  have  been  a  disadvantage  to  him. 
In  1605  he  writes  to  Vertunien^;  'As  to  what  Mr. 
Scaliger  has  said  to  you  of  my  age  and  of  my  learning,  I 
must  be  fain  to  confess  that,  on  the  first  point,  he  is  not 
far  wrong.  Having  been  born  in  1559,  I  am  now  (1605) 
on  the  verge  of  being  an  old  man,  if  not  one  already. 
But  as  to  the  second  head,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I 
cannot  appropriate  the  thousandth  part  of  what  he  has 
been  pleased  to  say  of  me.  I  was  taught  by  my  father,  a 
man  of  great  capacity,  but  wholly  absorbed  in  the  affairs 
of  the  church;  sometimes  absent  from  his  family  for 
whole  years  together ;  nearly  every  year  turned  out  of 
his  house,  to  find  it  sacked  on  his  return.  So  "that  I 
cannot  say  that  I  began  my  studies  till  I  was  twenty, 
when  I  was  sent  by  him  to  Geneva  ^.  I  am  a  self-taught 
man ;  6^i\i,aQT]s  and  avTohCbaKTos.  Instead  of  the  learning 
which  Mons.  de  I'Escale's  goodness  credits  me  with,  I 
can  only  console  myself  that  I  lost  the  best  part  of  my 
early  years  in  persecution  for  the  truth,  a  memory  which 
is  sweeter  to  me  than  honey  or  sugar.' 

I  At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  was  sent  by  his  father  to 
Geneva  (1578),  where  he  remained,  first  as  a  student,  and 

i  afterwards  as  professor,  for  the  next  eighteen  years. 

'  Ep.  908  :  '  Ingratus  sim  erga  Deum,  nisi  illi  gratias  agam,  eo  patre  esse  me 
natum,  cujus  vita  speculum  est  omnium  virtutum.  Illi  ego  debeo  quicquid  in 
Uteris  didici.' 

'  Ep.  453. 
Ep.  453 :  '  Je  puis  dire  avoir  commente  mes  etudes  lors  que  age  de  vingt 
ans  je  fus  par  lui  envoye  a  Geneve,' 


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[APPENDIX  TO  I. 

The  following  particulars  as  to  the  children  of  Arnold  and 
Mengine  Casaubon  are  taken  from  M.  Bordier's  article  quoted 
on  page  3  (note^) : — 

'  Elle  (Mengine)  avait  eu  9  enfants  dont  quatre  seulement 
depasserent  le  jeune  age  :  (i)  Isaac ;  (2)  un  frere  rest6  inconnu 
qui  v6cut  aussi  a  Bourdeaux ;  (3)  Sara  Tain^e  de  tous,  qui 
epousa  un  habitant  de  Bourdeaux  nomm6  Pierre  Chabanne  et 
mourut  le  23  oct.  1601  (son  mari  lui  surv^cut ;  Elle  lui  laissa 
trois  fils,  Pierre,  Isaac  et  Charles)  ;  enfin  (4)  Anne,  marine  en 
1594,  a  Geneve,  avec  Jean  Rigot  ou  Rigotti,  maitre  d'artillerie 
de  I'arm^e  royale  en  France,  et  qui  est  inscrite  au  reg.  des 
inhumations  du  cimetiere  de  la  Trinity  a  Paris,  reg.  de  Charen- 
ton,  en  ces  termes :  "Anne  de  Casaubon,  veuve  de  feu  Jehan 
Rigoti,  grand  maitre  d'artillerie  a  Geneve,  enterre  a  Paris  le  18 
janv.  1641  a  I'age  de  73  ans."  Cette  inscription  est  singuliere, 
car  la  dame  Rigotti  6tait  devenue  veuve  presque  de  suite,  et 
Ton  croit  qu'elle  se  remaria  en  1603  avec  Pierre  Perillau, 
ministre  de  I'lle  Bouchard  en  Touraine ;  or,  cependant  son 
frere,  lorsqu'il  parle  d'elle  dans  ses  Ephemerides,  jusqu'en 
1607  et  1608,  continue  de  I'appeler  Anna  Rigotia  ou  soror 
Rigotia.'] 


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II. 

GENEVA. 

1578-1596- 

The  name  of  Casaubon  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
matriculation  book,  or  '  Livre  du  Recteur,'  which  is  still 
extant  in  the  archives  of  Geneva.  The  register  is  perfect, 
but  the  entry  of  names  appears  to  have  been  neglected 
for  the  two  years  1577,  8.  Of  his  student's  years  no 
account  is  preserved.  It  appears  probable  that  he  was 
intended  to  become  a  minister,  and  that  the  destination 
of  his  after  hfe  was  due  to  accident.  He  had  the 
advantage  of  learning  greek  under  a  fairly  competent 
scholar,  Franciscus  Portus,  a  native  greek  (he  was  of 
Crete),  who  had  taught  greek  at  Geneva  ever  since 
1562.  Casaubon  had  hardly  completed  his  third  aca- 
demical year,  when  Portus  died  (aet.  71),  having  suggested 
Casaubon  as  qualified  to  succeed  to  his  place.  Portus 
was  not  only  an  accomplished  scholar,  but  a  man 
who  had  seen  much  of  the  world,  and  of  the  cultivated 
society  of  the  time.  Leaving  his  native  country  as  a 
child,  he  had  lived  so  long  in  Italy — at  Venice,  at  Modena, 
and  Ferrara — that  Italian  had  become  his  mother  tongue. 
He  had  forgotten  romaic,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
Scaliger^,  and  his  letter  in  reply  to  Crusius  is  written  in 
classical  greek  ^.  His  discerning  eye  picked  out  the 
young  Casaubon  as  the  one  of  all  his  pupils  competent  to 

'  Scaligerana  2".  p.  193.  ^  Crusius,  Turcograecia,  p.  517, 


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Sect.  II.]  GENEVA.      1578-1596.  9 

succeed  him.  Franciscus  Portus  deserves  commemora- 
tion in  the  history  of  learning,  if  for  no  other  reason,  for 
this,  that  he  turned  Isaac  Casaubon  to  the  study  of  greek. 
Though  Casaubon  was  not  his  only  eminent  pupil. 
Portus  had  taught  Sigonius,  and  Sigonius,  then  aet.  22, 
had  succeeded  Portus  as  teacher  of  greek  at  Modena,  in 
1546  ^ 

The  council  took  a  year  to  make  the  appointment,  and 
then,  on  the  unanimous  recommendation  of  the  Venerable 
Company  and  the  Professors,  received  Casaubon  as 
Professor  of  greek. 
The  entry  in  the  register  runs  thus  ^  :— 
'  M.  Isaac,  fils  de  Arnaud  Casabon,  citoien  de  Geneve,  a 
este  presente  par  M.  de  La  Faie,  recteur,  pour  estre  pro- 
fesseur  de  la  langue  grecque,  suyvant  I'advis  de  tous  les 
ministres  et  professeurs.  A  este  arreste  quon  le  regoyve, 
et  suyvant  ce  a  prest6  serment.' 

The  title  '  Professor  of  greek '  has  an  imposing  sound. 
But  on  closer  inspection  the  reality  is  very  simple,  and 
more  than  humble.  There  is  no  room  to  infer  with  the 
biographers  an  unnatural  precocity  in  Casaubon.  When 
the  age  of  the  wandering  native  greek  teachers  was  past — 
Franciscus  Portus  was  one  of  the  last  of  them, — men  who 
knew  greek  at  all  were  scarce,  and  men  who  knew  it 
profoundly  were  not  to  be  found.  Young  men  fresh  from 
the  schools  had  at  least  not  forgotten  the  rudiments.  So 
Xylander  (Holtzmann)  became  'Professor'  of  greek  at 
Heidelberg,  set.  26,  and  Daniel  Heinsius  lectured  on  it  at 
Leyden,  aet.  18.     The  Academy  of  Geneva  was  far  enough 

'  [Of  his  studies  in  civil  law  and  philosophy  under  the  celebrated  Pacius, — 
Pacio  de  Beriga — Casaubon  writes  (Ep.  879) : — 

'  Ego  interim  juri  civili  et  philosophise  operam  dabam  cupidus  redeundi 
in  Galliam.  Tres  annos  impendi  iis  studiis  publice  et  privatim  usus  doctore 
Pacio,  cujus  Organon  et  alia  scripta  philosophica,  opinor,  vidisti.  Scito  ilium 
ingentem  commentarium  in  Organon  mihi  et  duobus  amicis  scriptum  esse,  cum 
ille  nos  domi  suae  doceret  raercede  ingenti;  sed  parens  mens  nuUi  pecuniae 
parcebat  ut  meis  studiis  consuleretur.'] 

^  Geneva  mss.  Registre  du  petit  conseil,  fo.  109,  5  juin,  158a. 


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lO 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


from  ranking  with  the  University  of  Heidelberg,  and  still 
less  with  that  of  Leyden. 

Modern  historians  of  Geneva,  having  before  them  what 
Geneva  became  in  the  eighteenth  century,  maybe  forgiven 
for  having  transported  this  picture  to  an  earlier  period. 
Had  Calvin  conceived  the  idea,  which  is  attributed  to  him, 
of  a  school  of  general  education,  neither  time  nor  place 
would  have  permitted  its  realisation.  The  Geneva  of 
Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  the  cosmopolitan  centre,  its  inde- 
pendence guaranteed  by  the  strength  of  the  Swiss  cantons 
at  its  back,  and  the  mutual  jealousy  of  the  great  powers, 
was  in  a  very  different  position  from  the  Geneva  of  Calvin. 
The  merit  of  Calvin  consists  not  in  largeness  of  mind,  but 
in  the  judgment  which  perceived  exactly  what  was  wanted. 
It  is  in  vain  that  Calvin's  panegyrists  persist  in  attributing 
to  him  views,  which  he  could  not  have  had,  without 
ceasing  to  be  the  man  he  was — the  man  of  his  age  and 
place.  Haag  would  represent^  him  as  designing  '  un  grand 
etablissement  d'instruction  publique  dont  I'enseignement 
devait  embrasser  I'ensemble  de  toutes  les  connoissances 
humaines.'  Fine  phrase  disguising  the  bare  fact !  Calvin 
planned  for  Geneva  that  which  the  reformed  church  of  the 
french  tongue  wanted  in  1559.  An  elementary  school, 
and  a  seminary  for  ministers — this  was  what  was  wanted, 
and  this  was  what  Calvin  supplied.  A  grand  Academy  of 
letters  or  science,  such  as  the  historians  find  in  his 
scheme,  was  as  little  in  Calvin's  thoughts  as  the  steamboats 
which  now  ply  on  the  lake  Leman.  In  this,  as  in  all 
his  undertakings,  Calvin  projected  what  was  required,  and 
what  could  be  effected,  with  a  distinctness  of  purpose  and 
practical  sense,  which  made  him  what  he  was,  the  head  of 
his  party  in  a  struggle  for  life  against  fearful  odds. 

Each  of  the  cantons,  on  embracing  the  reform,  had 
found  the  necessity  of  some  institution  for  the  training  of 
its   own  ministers.     Bale  had  already,  three  generations 

'  La  France  Protestante,  art.  Calvin. 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  II 

old,  a  university  with  papal  privileges  (founded  1460). 
Zurich,  Berne,  and  Lausanne,  erected  their  own  academies. 
Geneva  required  its  own,  not  less.  The  preamble  to  the 
statutes  of  the  academy  of  Geneva  (1559),  drawn  doubtless 
by  Calvin's  hand,  does  not  go  beyond  this  intention. 
'  Verily  hath  God  heretofore  endowed  our  commonwealth 
with  many  and  notable  adornments,  yet  hath  it,  to  this 
day,  had  to  seek  abroad,  for  instruction  in  good  arts  and 
disciplines  for  its  youth,  with  many  lets  and  hindrances  ^.' 
Note,  in  the  whole  composition,  the  tone  of  measured 
soHdity,  which  says  less  than  it  means  to  perform.  This 
self-contained  power,  this  suppressed  moral  force,  which  is 
characteristic,  not  of  Calvin  alone,  but  of  the  whole  of  the 
French  reform,  stands  in  noble  contrast  to  the  vain-glorious 
style  which  Europe  now  is  apt  to  ascribe  to  France  as 
catholicised  by  Louis  XIV.  Perhaps  at  the  time  that  Calvin 
gave  utterance  to  this  simple  proposal,  he  foresaw  that  his 
new  school  might  have  a  higher  destiny.  A  seminary  of 
ministers  for  Geneva  and  Dauphine,  that  was  the  first 
thing.  That  it  might  become  the  seminary  for  the  whole 
of  the  French  reform,  nay  beyond  the  French  tongue,  that 
the  genevan  academy  would  be  the  heart  of  the  whole 
presbyterian  system  throughout  Europe,  this  hope  may 
have  presented  itself  to  Calvin's  imagination.  He  was  not 
blind  to  the  peculiar  advantages,  political,  geographical, 
ethnical,  of  Geneva.  Ten  years  before,  in  1549,  he  had 
written  to  Bullinger,  '  when  I  consider  what  aptitude  this 
little  corner  has  for  promoting  Christ's  kingdom,  I  am 
naturally  solicitous  to  keep  my  hold  of  it  ^.'  But  the  idea 
of  a  metropolitan  university,  a  nursery  of  the  arts  and 
sciences,  had  no  place  in  the  mind  of  Calvin,  nor  even 
in  that  of  the  more  cultivated  Beza.  The  first  object  was 
to  train  pastors,  and  the  education  given  bore,  in  all  its 
parts,  the  stamp  of  the  ecclesiastical  seminary. 

^  Promulgatio  legura  Academise  Genevensis ;  Fick's  reprint,  1859. 
^  Ep.  ad  Bullinger. 


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12  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

The  Academy  (so-called)  at  Geneva  was  the  latest,  and 
not  the  least  valuable  of  Calvin's  institutions  ^  It  was  not 
till  after  the  final  humiliation  of  the  republican  party  (1555), 
and  the  satisfactory  understanding  with  Berne  (1558)  that 
he  was  able  to  organise  it.  A  town  school,  indeed,  there 
had  been  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  independence  of 
Geneva  (1536).  But  it  had  only  given  the  rudiments  of 
learning.  A  genevan  youth,  who  wished  to  complete  his 
education,  was  obliged  to  go  abroad  to  do  so  ^. 

The  new  institution  was  composed  of  two  schools.  One 
for  boys,  a  gymnasium,  college,  or  grammar-school,  consist- 
ing, according  to  the  universally  received  division,  of  seven 
classes.  In  the  sixth  and  seventh  classes  the  rudiments 
were  taught.  From  the  fifth  class  upwards,  the  instruction 
was  in  the  classics.  The  other  part  of  the  institution  was 
one  for  higher  education,  and  was  intended  to  carry  on 
those  pupils,  who  had  passed  through  the  school.  But  it 
was  not  confined  to  them,  it  was  open  to  any  who  chose  to 
enter  their  names  as  students.  In  the  latin  statutes,  this 
part  of  the  institution  was  called  the  Schola  Publica,  and  the 
lower  part,  or  college,  is  styled  the  Schola  Privata.  When 
the  term  'academy  of  Geneva'  is  used,  the  upper,  or  schola 
publica  of  professors  and  students  is  usually  intended, 
though  '  academy '  is  sometimes  loosely  said  of  the  whole 
institution  taken  together.  The  academy  consisted  at 
first  of  three  chairs,  hebrew,  greek,  and  Arts.  The 
department  of  Theology,  which  was  the  capital  considera- 
tion, was  taught  by  Calvin  (afterwards  by  Beza)  as  pastor, 
without  the  title  of  professor.  After  a  time,  chairs  in  Law 
and  Medicine  were  added.  Both  schools,  the  upper  and 
the  lower,  were  under  the  control  of  a  rector  chosen  every 
two  years,  but  re-eligible.     How  entirely  the  education  of 

'  See  note  A  in  Appendix. 

"^  Leges  Academic,  1559 :  ■  Quum  ad  eum  usque  diem  coacta  fuisset  civitas 
Genevensis,  maximis  cum  incommodis  ac  difficultatibus,  ab  iis  urbibus  et 
gentibus  petere  suae  juventuti  bonarum  artium  ac  disciplinarum  cognitionem 
quibus  ipsa  .  .  .  syncerffi  religionis  scientiam  de  suo  quodammodo  largiebatur.' 


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n.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  13 

Geneva  was  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  rector,  professors,  head-master,  and  all 
the  masters  in  the  lower  school  were  appointed  by  the 
Venerable  Company  of  pastors,  and  only  confirmed  by  the 
Council. 

In  entering  their  names    in  the   '  rector's   book '  the 
students  of  the  academy  subscribed  not  only  the  statutes, 
but  also  a  lengthened  confession  of  calvinistic  orthodoxy. 
Considering  the  rigidity  of  everything  else,  it  may  seem 
surprising   that    as   early  as    1576,   in   less   than  twenty 
years  from  its  establishment,  this  subscription  had  to  be 
abolished.     Still   more   surprising  is  the  tolerant  motive 
recorded    in    the   register,    that    'lutherans   and    papists 
may  be  no  longer  hindered  from  coming  to  study  here ; 
and  that,  further,  it  does  not  seem  right  to  press  a  young 
conscience  which  is  unresolved  to  sign  what  it  doth  not 
as    yet  understand ;    and    further  that  they  of   Saxony 
have  taken  occasion  herefrom  to  compel  those  who  go 
from  hence  to  them  to  sign  the  confession  of  Augsburg  1.' 
Charles  Perrot,  one  of  the  pastors,  was  put  forward  as 
the   mover  of  this   liberal   step.     But  there   can   be   no 
doubt    that    it    had    the    approbation    of    Beza,   without 
which    nothing    was    done,    at    that    period.      For    200 
years    no    further    step    was    taken     in     that    direction. 
Though    subscription   was   abolished    for    students,    yet 
down  to  1796,  no  dissident,  not  even  a  lutheran,  could 
be    a    teacher    in    the    academy,   or    even  a    citizen    of 
Geneva.      Beza,  and  the  sixteenth  century,  were,  if  not 
more   tolerant,   more   enlightened  than    the   seventeenth 
century.     It  was  policy,  not  indifference  to  dogma. 

The  policy  of  the  State  of  Geneva,  its  open-armed 
hospitality,  was  extended  to  its  school  and  university. 
Originally  designed  for  natives,  the  academy  of  Geneva 
became  very  early  a  great  resort  of  foreign  students. 
They  flocked  in  from  all  parts  of  protestant  Europe,  even 

^  Registre  du  conseil,  ap.  Gabarel,  a.  12a. 


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14 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


from  lutheran  countries.  That  the  disciphne  main- 
tained was  rigorous,  and  that  it  had  a  strictly  church 
character— both  these  facts  contributed  to  accredit  the 
school,  throughout  the  reformed  countries.  In  the  school 
the  hour  of  opening  was  six  in  summer,  seven  in  winter. 
The  boys  brought  their  breakfast  with  them,  and  ate  it  on 
the  benches  of  the  schoolroom.  They  might  not  bring 
anything  but  the  simplest  food,  the  same  for  rich  and  poor. 
The  classrooms  were  open  to  all  the  rigours  of  the  seasons. 
In  November  1564,  a  master  having  petitioned  that  the 
windows  might  be  glazed,  the  council  took  it  into  its  con- 
sideration. The  decision  arrived  at  was,  that '  the  children 
might,  if  they  hked,  paste  paper  over  the  openings  next 
their  seats  ^,'  There  was  a  charcoal  brazier  in  each  class- 
room in  the  very  cold  weather,  at  which,  when  the  fingers 
refused  their  office,  they  might  be  thawed  for  a  few 
seconds.  All  the  pupils  had  to  attend  in  their  place  at 
church,  the  Wednesday  morning  sermon,  on  Sunday  three 
times,  morning  and  afternoon  sermon  and  catechism. 
Absence  without  a  valid  excuse  was  followed  by  punish- 
ment. 

The  students  of  the  '  public  school '  or  academy  being  in 
great  part  strangers,  gave  more  trouble— especially  the 
Germans.  Accustomed  to  the  licence  of  the  universities 
of  the  fatherland,  they  thought  to  carry  the  privileges  of 
the  Bursch  with  them.  They  were  soon  undeceived. 
Certain  families,  '  vivans  selon  Dieu,'  were  selected,  and 
the  scholars  not  allowed  to  lodge  elsewhere.  The  severity 
of  its  discipline  recommended  Geneva  as  much  as  the 
theological  celebrity  of  Calvin.  Pious  parents  throughout 
Europe  gladly  accepted  the  risks  of  the  distance,  and  the 
dangerous  neighbourhood,  to  bring  their  sons  under  the 
shadow  of  such  a  training. 

On   the   numbers   of  the   students   the    statements   in 

'  Goethe  (Italienische  Reise,  Werke,  19.  23),  found,  in  1787,  papered  windows 
at  Torbole. 


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II.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596,  15 

the  histories  are  vague,  and  marked  with  the  tendency  to 
ampHfy.  The  figure  of  1000  in  which  the  modern  writers, 
Henry,  Gaberel,  Stahehn,  seem  so  unanimous,  is  not 
traceable  beyond  an  anonymous  letter  quoted  by  Sayous  ^, 
'  C'est  merveille  des  auditeurs  des  legons  de  M.  Calvin ; 
j'estime  qu'ils  sont  journellement  plus  de  mille.'  Even  if 
this  unauthenticated  statement  be  accepted,  it  must  be 
understood  of  the  whole  affluence  to  Calvin's  lectures, 
which  were  doubtless  open  to  the  public.  We  know  from 
the  documentary  evidence  of  the  '  Leges  academiae,'  that 
on  the  day  of  opening  there  were  present '  600  scholars.' 
But  this  includes  the  boys  in  the  lower  school  with  its 
seven  classes,  comprising  doubtless  the  whole  of  those 
between  seven  and  fifteen,  who  were  of  a  rank  to  receive 
grammar-school  education.  There  remains  the  undeniable 
evidence  of  the  matriculation,  book  or  '  livre  du  recteur.' 
From  this  we  find  that,  throwing  out  the  exceptional  years 
of  the  plague,  the  Saint-Bartholomew,  and  the  worst  years 
of  the  religious  war,  the  average  of  entries  was  about  forty 
per  annum.  Tholuck  has  proved  that  for  the  univer- 
sities of  Germany,  at  this  period,  we  may  assume  four 
years  as  the  average  duration  of  a  student's  residence.  If 
this  average  were  applicable  to  Geneva,  we  should  have 
160  as  the  total  number  of  students— the  '  Frequenz,'  as 
the  Germans  call  it.  But  for  various  reasons  it  is  probable 
that  the  average  stay  of  a  student  at  Geneva  did  not  reach 
four  years.  We  shall  be  nearer  the  mark,  if  we  assume  the 
number  of  students,  residing  in  any  one  year,  at  from  100  to 
120.  In  the  exceptional  years  above  named,  the  actual 
numbers  were  much  below  this  average.  In  1572  (Saint- 
Bartholomew)  there  were  only  three  matriculations.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  1597  (Edict  of  Nantes)  they  amounted  to 
120.  When  this  is  clear  to  us,  we  understand  how  it  was 
possible  to  get  on  with  so  few  professors.  There  were  at 
first  but  three  literary  professors ;  two  more  were  added 

•  Etudes  litt^raires,  p.  71. 


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1 6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

afterwards.  There  were  besides  the  two  theological 
professors;  but  their  lectures  were,  in  fact,  doctrinal 
sermons,  pastoral  rather  than  professorial.  Calvin  never 
would  take  the  title  of  professor.  These  lecture-sermons, 
though  doctrinal,  were  in  the  form  of  exegesis  ;  they  were 
commentaries  on  books  of  the  bible.  Scientific  '  Dogmatik ' 
was  an  invention  of  the  17th  century. 

The  day  opened  with  a  service  or  sermon  at  5  a.m.  in 
summer,  6  a.m.  in  winter.  This,  not  for  the  students, 
but  for  the  congregation.  This  lasted  an  hour.  Im- 
mediately after  the  sermon  followed  the  lecture  of  the 
hebrew  professor.  This  lecture  was  also  exegetical.  He 
was  also  followed  by  the  professor  of  greek,  who  explained 
an  author,  of  philosophy  or  ethics,  Aristotle,  Plato, 
Plutarch,  or  some  christian  writer.  Ten  was  the  dinner 
hour.  After  dinner  the  greek  professor  had  a  second  hour, 
when  he  read  some  greek  poet,  orator,  or  historian.  Latin 
authors  were  considered  to  belong  to  the  province  of  the 
professor  of  arts.  But  only  on  three  days  of  the  week  did 
the  greek  professor  lecture  twice.  On  Wednesday  and 
Friday  he  had  no  morning  lectures ;  on  Saturday  none  at 
all.  But  on  Friday  every  professor  had  to  attend  the 
weekly  consistory,  or  conference  of  ministers.  The 
Sunday  was  spent  in  hearing  the  sermons.  The  actual 
lecturing  of  the  greek  professor  was  thus  only  eight  hours 
per  week. 

But  then  his  lectures  were  not  mere  grammar,  or 
construing  lessons  to  learners.  Greek  was  learnt  in  the 
school.  The  boy  began  greek  in  the  fourth  class,  i.  e.  at 
ten  or  eleven  years  old.  By  the  time  he  quitted  the  first 
class  he  had  read  through  some  of  the  principal  authors. 
The  greek  professor,  therefore,  was  not  doomed,  hke  the 
Scottish  professor,  to  teach  the  elements.  He  had  before 
him  an  advanced  class,  in  whom  he  might  assume  a 
knowledge,  not  of  the  language  only,  but  of  the  ordinary 
school  cycle  of  greek  history  and  antiquities.     We  shall 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  17 

give  some  account  below  of  the  subjects  which  Casaubon 
taught  at  Geneva. 

High  work  did  not  mean  high  pay.  'The  salaries  of 
the  professors,'  writes  Calvin,  '  are  not  at  the  magnificent 
rate  usual  in  Germany,  but  are  on  a  par  with  those  of  the 
pastors,  barely  sufficient  for  support  1.'  They  were  fixed 
at  280  genevese  florins.  Something  could  be  added  to 
this  scanty  pay  by  boarding  students,  as  the  professors 
usually  did.  Ninety  florins  were  considered  sufficient 
allowance  for  board  and  lodging,  out  of  which  there  could 
be  little  profit,  even  though,  as  we  are  told  in  the  life  of  S. 
Francis  de  Sales,  '  Savoy  is  the  country  in  all  the  world 
where  one  can  live  the  cheapest  ^'  A  Professor  of  Law 
or  Medicine  it  was  necessary,  then  as  now,  to  pay  more 
highly ;  and  we  read  of  their  having  600,  700,  and  even 
800  genevese  florins.  With  800  florins,  Hotoman,  in  1577, 
found  it  impossible  to  live ;  but  then  he  had  a  family  of 
nine  children. 

It  is  true,  that  this  period,  and  the  17th  century  also, 
echo  with  the  complaints  of  the  poverty  of  professors. 
But,  in  Geneva,  this  economy  was  not  niggardliness,  it 
was  bare  poverty.  Indeed,  in  the  circumstances  of  the 
republic,  it  is  more  surprising  that  the  schools  should 
have  continued  to  exist  at  all,  than  that  the  teachers 
should  have  shared  in  a  misery  which  was  common  to  all. 
The  struggle  of  Geneva  against  the  Dukes  of  Savoy  was 
not  that  of  an  affluent  bourgeoisie  ambitious  of  political 
independence;  it  was  a  struggle  for  existence.  Geneva 
was  not  only  a  burgher  aristocracy,  hateful  in  the  eyes  of 
sovereign  princes  ^,  but  an  outpost  of  protestantism, 
encamped  as  it  were  within  the  very  territory  of  Savoy. 

'  Epp.  ap.  Henry,  Leben  Calvin's,  3.  390. 

'^  MarsoUier,  Vie  de  S.  Franjois,  1.  433. 

'  Zurich  Letters,  and  ser.  p.  275 :  '  As  for  Geneva,  they  not  only  hate,  but 
execrate  it.'  Cf.  the  representations  of  S.  Francis  de  Sales  to  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  ap.  MarsoUier,  i.  246  :  '  Que  les  calvinistes  dtojent  naturellement 
rSpublicains,  et  ennemis  de  I'dtat  monarchique,'  etc. 

C 

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1 8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Charles  Emmanuel  had  sworn  that  'he  would  have 
Geneva  if  it  cost  him  a  million.'  Twice  in  one  year  (1584) 
well  concerted  plots,  favoured  by  traitors  within,  were 
detected  when  ripe  for  execution.  Nor  was  it  only 
liberty,  political  and  religious,  which  was  at  stake.  The 
savage  cruelty,  which  was  thought  praiseworthy  in  ca- 
tholic soldiers  dealing  with  Calvinists,  told  the  Genevese 
what  to  expect  if  the  mercenaries  once  got  within  the 
walls  ^  In  1589  the  Duke  of  Savoy  brought  up  an  army 
of  18,000  regular  troops,  with  the  determination  to  destroy 
the  nest  of  heretics  once  for  all.  The  little  repubhc, 
deserted  at  the  critical  moment  by  Berne,  and  hated  by 
the  lutheran  princes  of  Germany,  as  much  as  by 
fanatically  catholic  France,  could  only  muster  2186  men 
capable  of  bearing  arms.  History  has  not  a  more  gallant 
struggle  against  odds  to  record.  Before  it  was  released 
by  the  peace  of  Vervins  (1598),  Geneva  had  lost  1500  men 
out  of  its  total  levy  of  2186.  The  importance  of  destroying 
the  city  was  fully  understood  by  the  catholic  party.  It 
was  especially  urged  by  .S.  Francis  de  Sales  in  a  memorial 
presented  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  The  schools  and  the 
printing-presses  are  particularly  pointed  out,  by  the  ca- 
tholic saint,  as  the  instruments  of  mischief  ^ 

The  misery  suffered  within  the  walls  during  this  siege,  or 
eTTtretxto-ts,  was  frightful.  The  population  of  Geneva  before 
the  troubles  in  France  is  estimated  at  12,000^.     During 

'  A  bishop  of  Geneva  writes  in  1534  ;  Jussie,  Levain  du  Calvinisme,  p.  84 : 
'  Que  la  oil  on  trouverait  des  Luth^riens  on  les  pouvoit  prendre,  tuer,  ou  pendre 
Si  un  arbre,  sans  nuUe  difficulte  ou  doute.' 

^  Aug.  Sales,  Vita  S.  Francisci  de  Sales,  p.  99 :  '  Quid  dicam  de  prelis  qu^ 
habent  amplissima  et  munitissima,  unde  in  omnem  terram  pestiferos  libros 
spargunt .  .  .  accedunt  ad  haec  scholae  ad  quas  plerique  nobili  sanguine  orti 
juvenes  advolant  a  Francia.' 

The  protestants  were  equally  aware  that  the  printing-press  had  been  a  great 
engine  of  the  success  of  the  reformation  in  the  towns  where  it  was  free. 
GryniEus,  Epp.  p.  26 :  '  Turn  solide  doctorum  virorum  voce  viva  et  scriptis 
editis;  .  .  .  turn  officinarum  typographicarum,  quse  maximo  illis  adjumento 
fuerunt.' 

'  Bonivard,  Chronique,  2.  385. 


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U.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  19 

the  troubles  hundreds   of  French  families  immigrated; 
the   foreigners   almost    outnumbered   the  native    towns- 
men ^.     In  1558,  279  foreigners  were  admitted  citizens  in 
one  day.    Yet  in  1589  the  population  was  only  13,000^. 
Such  had  been  the  ravages  of  famine,  pestilence,  misery, 
and  war.      Poverty  and  overcrowding  made  the  plague 
more  than  ordinarily  deadly  in  Geneva.     In  1615,  more 
than  4000  died  of  it — a  fourth  of  the  population.    The 
refugees,  happy  to  have  escaped  with  their  lives,  brought 
little  capital  with  them.    The  town  had  no  trade,  could 
have  none,  with  an  enemy  permanently  encamped  just 
outside   the  walls ''.     It  was   at  the   hazard   of  life   that 
travellers  arrived  or  left  the  city.     Its  fair  had  been  long 
before    transferred    to    Lyon.      The  only  industry  was 
printing,  mostly  little  remunerative,   as  the  example  of 
Henri  Estienne  shows.  '  This  commonwealth  and  church,' 
says  Beza*,  '  may  be  truly  called  a  nursery  of  poverty' — 
paupertatis  officina.    One  resource  it  had  in  the  sympathy 
of  foreign  churches,  kindled  by  returned  students,  who 
carried  back  reports  of  privation  heroically  endured.    The 
registers  of  the  council,  and  the  correspondence  of  the 
period,  are  full  of  acknowledgments  of  such  aid.    England, 
and  English  bishops,  were  not  among  the  most  backward. 
Cox,  Sandys,  Grindal,  never  send  a  letter  to  Zurich  with- 
out enclosing  a  remembrance  ®.    The  bishop  of  Ely  sends 
Gualter    five    crowns.     The    bishop    of   London   sends 
Bullinger  enough  cloth  to  make  a  gown.    This  was  to 

1  Ed.  Mallet,  M6m.  et  Documens  de  la  Social  de  I'Hist.  de  Genfeve,  8.  453. 

"^  Registre  du  conseil,  ap.  Gr^nus,  p.  68. 

'  The  system  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  was  to  erect  two  forts,  Santa  Catarina 
and  '  Mommelianum,'  a  short  distance  from  the  city,  on  his  own  territory,  the 
garrison  of  which  commanded  the  roads  on  the  side  of  Savoy  and  Franche 
Comte.  These  were  not  destroyed  till  the  campaign  of  1600,  Burney  mss. 
365.  59,  Lect  to-Casaubon,  13  Nov.  1600:  '  Extat  etiamnum,  quod  mirere, 
Catharina  .  .  .  tamen,  dedito  superioribus  diebus  Mommeliano,  finem  malorum 
speramus  ab  exempto.'     Cf.  Thuanus,  Hist.  125.  13. 

*  Vita  Calvini. 

»  Zurich  Letters  (publication  of  Parker  Society),  passim. 

C  2 

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20  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Ziirich.  But  in  1583  the  bishops  procured  a  royal  brief 
for  a  collection  through  the  churches  of  England  in  aid 
of  Geneva.  It  produced  .^5039.  Two  public  quetes  made 
in  Holland  raised  considerable  sums,  though  the  United 
Provinces  were  then  engaged  in  their  death  struggle  with 
Philip  11.  The  maintenance  of  the  schools  at  Geneva 
was  a  special  object  of  these  subsidies.  Many  of  the 
reformed  churches,  too,  maintained  students  at  Geneva. 
So  Arminius  was  sent  there  at  the  charge  of  the  city  of 
Amsterdam,  and  Utenbogaert  at  the  charge  of  Utrecht. 
Till  the  rise  in  credit  of  Leyden  (founded  1575),  Holland, 
excluded  from  Louvain,  was  compelled  to  seek  education 
for  its  youth  in  foreign  countries.  But  Heidelberg,  or 
Herborn  in  Nassau,  being  more  conveniently  situated 
than  Geneva,  received  most  of  the  Dutch  students  ^- 

In  June,  1582,  Casaubon  had  received  his  appointment. 
To  one  whose  boyhood  had  been  a  school  of  hardship, 
a  fixed  stipend  of  £1.0  a  year,  and  rooms  in  the  college, 
may  have  seemed  provision  for  a  family.  Under  Calvin's 
rigid  police  early  marriage  was  the  rule ;  and  the  strength 
of  numbers  must  have  been  an  object  with  any  govern- 
ment of  Geneva.  Besides,  there  was  the  consideration  of 
boarders.  Accordingly,  in  September,  1583,  Casaubon 
married.  His  wife,  Mary,  though,  like  himself,  a  native 
of  Geneva,  was,  like  himself,  the  child  of  refugee  parents. 
Her  family  was  from  Bourdeaux  in  Dauphine.  The  union 
was  of  short  duration  *.  She  died  in  April,  1585,  leaving 
one  child,  a  daughter. 

Meanwhile,  distress  inside  the  walls  and  terror  without, 
were  slowly  enveloping  the  little  repubhc  and  threatening 
it  with  extinction.  The  protestant  cause  was  lost  in 
France,  and  it  was  now  a  question  not  of  Hberty  of  con- 
science, but  of  life.  Every  one  who  had  anywhere  else  to 
go  made  his  escape  from  the  doomed  city.     Bonaventure 

'  Schotel,  Studenten  Oproer  in  1594.  *  See  note  B  in  Appendix. 

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"•]  GENEVA.      1578-1596.  31 

Bertram,  professor  of  hebrew,  escaped  to  Frankenthal, 
Hotoman  to  Bale.  Hotoman  writes  to  Heidelberg:  'In 
the  whole  of  France  there  is  no  good  man  who  is  not 
suffering  severely.  In  our  Savoy  a  large  part  of  the 
population  has  actually  perished  of  famine,  and  now 
pestilence  is  attacking  those  that  have  survived  1.'  The 
assassination  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the  repeated  at- 
tempts on  the  life  of  Elizabeth,  and  on  that  of  the  King 
of  Navarre,  the  growing  fury  of  the  League,  the  armament 
of  Philip  II  against  England,  the  savage  massacres  which 
broke  out  from  time  to  time  in  the  French  towns,  intimated 
that  the  policy  of  S.  Bartholomew,  the  extinction  of  protes- 
tantism by  the  extermination  of  the  protestants,  was  the 
aim  of  the  triumphant  party.  The  desperate  position  of 
Geneva  was  such  that  foreign  students  ceased  to  come  at 
all,  and  the  greek  class,  as  was  natural,  was  the-  first  to 
drop.  In  November,  1585,  we  find  ^  that  Casaubon  was 
left  with  hardly  any  auditors.  The  council  amalgamated 
the  professorship  of  greek  with  that  of  history,  and  ap- 
pointed Casaubon  to  the  double  charge.  But  in  1586 
things  were  worse,  and  it  was  resolved  to  give  up  the 
academy.  The  council,  with  many  expressions  of  regret, 
intimated  to  the  professors — the  two  theological  professors 
excepted — that  their  functions  must  cease  ^.  In  this  junc- 
ture the  Ven.  company  of  pastors  came  forward  (October  7) 
and  petitioned  the  council  that  such  a  public  calamity  as 
the  suppression  of  the  academy  might  be  averted,  and 
that  their  own  salaries  might  be  applied  to  the  payment 
of  the  professors.    The  petition  was  refused.     But  at  the 


'  Hotom.  Epp.  ep.  147. 

^  Geneva  mss.  Registre  du  pet.  cons.  f".  160.  22  nov.  1585  :  '  D'aultant  que 
M.  Casaubon  n'a  presque  point  d'auditeur.' 

^  Geneva  mss.  Registre  du  pet.  cons.  f°.  226,  7  octob.  1586 :  '  Suyvant  ce  qui 
a  est6  cy  devant  parl^  de  las  casser  a  cause  des  charges  que  la  ville  supporte 
qui  sont  grandes,  a  estd  arrests  qu'en  ceste  consideration,  et  d'aultant  qu'ils 
n'ont  a  prfeent  des  auditeurs,  qu'on  les  congedie,  et  qu'on  retienne  leur  mande- 
ment  de  ce  quartier.' 


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ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [sect. 


next  weekly  meeting  of  the  council  the  Ven.  company 
make  a  fresh  proposal  (October  14).     They  offer  to  raise 
among  themselves  1000  crowns,  and  lend  it  to  the  treasury, 
of  course  without  interest,  for  the  relief  of  the  present 
necessity.     'As  for  closing  the  college,'  says   their  me- 
morial, 'our  academy  is  now  regarded  as  the  seminary 
of  the  churches  of  France ;   the  school  of  La  Rochelle 
being  the  only  one  now  left  in  that  kingdom.     The  repu- 
tation of  our  school  is  so  widely  spread  that  even  England 
sends  us  students.     The  honour  of  your  lordships  is  in- 
volved in  the  maintenance  of  this  precious  establishment. 
The  classical  languages  and  philosophy  are  indispensable 
for  theology.     Now,  more  than  ever,  ought  we  to  cherish 
the  study  of  the  sciences,  when  the  Jesuits  have  founded 
such  a  quantity  of  schools  both  in  Switzerland  and  Savoy. 
It  is  said  that  the  number  of  students  in  our  academy  is 
become  insignificant.     This  is  not  so,  seeing  that  at  the 
last  "promotions"  twenty-three  passed   from   the   lower 
school  to  the  public  lectures.    And  as  for  the  attendance 
at  these  lectures,  no  one  can  say  that  M'.  Casaubon  wants 
for  auditors  ^.      If  the  Council  persists  in  its  resolution, 
our  city  will  suffer  in  character ;  and  the  foreign  students 
once  diverted  from  us  will  not  find  their  way  back  when 
better  times  come.' 

Men,  who  were  prepared  to  make  such  sacrifices,  were 
not  altogether  unworthy  to  exercise  even  the  despotic 
power  which  these  ministers  wielded.  The  council  did 
not,  for  the  present,  think  proper  to  grant  this  request, 
and  the  lectures  were  suspended^.  We  do  not  exactly 
know  how  long  the  suspension  of  the  schools  continued. 
But,  as  Casaubon  made  a  journey  to  Frankfort  in  1590, 
without  applying  for  leave  of  absence,  it  may  be  con- 

'  The  lectures  on  Persius  were  delivered  'magna  frequentia,'  Burmann,  Syll. 
J.,  ep.  362;  'frequenti  auditorio.'     Schultze,  epp.  inedd.  p.  14. 

^  Tholuck,  Geschichte  des  Rationalismus,  quotes  a  private  letter  of  a  law  student 
in  1586,  which  says,  '  all  the  professors  here  have  resigned  for  want  of  hearers.' 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596. 


»3 


jectured  that  he  did  not  resume  before  that  year.  These 
two  or  three  years,  1586-88,  were  the  darkest  period.  In 
1587  the  plague  was  at  its  worst.  It  made  havoc  in  the 
unventilated  dweUings  and  close  streets,  in  which  were 
crowded  a  half-famished  population.  The  splendid  quay, 
on  which  now  rise  the  magnificent  hotels  and  warehouses, 
was  then  an  unwholesome  marsh.  The  marauding  parties 
of  the  mercenary  troops  of  Savoy  made  escape  into  the 
fresh  air  of  the  mountains  impossible.  Duty  on  the  walls 
was  incessant,  day  and  night.  'The  exhaustion  of  the 
public  treasury,'  writes  Casaubon\  'is  complete.  Our 
burghers  are  entirely  impoverished.  The  city  is  filled 
with  paupers  and  beggars.  A  large  part  of  the  population 
is  on  the  verge  of  starvation.' 

We  catch  one  authentic  glimpse  which  shows  the  grow- 
ing esteem  which  he  had  conquered,  even  in  this  time  of 
general  suffering.  It  is  the  more  weighty  as  it  is  embodied 
in  the  official  proceedings  of  the  council.  In  August, 
1591,  the  ministers  return  to  the  charge  2.  The  academy 
appears,  at  this  date,  to  be  in  exercise  again,  but  to  be 
poorly  supported.  The  ministers  apply  on  behalf  of  the 
professors.  Beza  and  Perrot  were  deputed  to  wait  on 
'  my  Lords,'  and  to  represent  to  them  ^: — 

'  That  this  school  is  a  treasure  which  God  has  blessed 
in  such  sort,  that  there  have  issued  from  it  instruments  of 

'  Ep.  969  (to  Stuck)  :  '  Ingens  pauperum  et  mendicorum  turba,  vere  dico  tibi, 
plerique  nostrum  aegre  se  et  suos  defendant  ab  illo  M\x5i  .  .  .' 

^  Hotoman  writes  to  Tossanus  at  Heidelberg  to  use  his  influence  with  Beza 
'to  restore  as  soon  as  possible  the  professors  of  greek  and  of  philosophy,  by 
whose  suspension  this  State  has  incurred  a  heavy,  perhaps  incurable  wound.' 
Hotomann.  Epp.  ep.  145. 

^  Geneva  Mss.  Reg.  du  pet.  cons.  11  aout,  1591,  f".  149:  '  II  ya  le  sieur  Casau- 
bon,  qui  sera  un  trfes  rare  personage  si  Dieu  luy  fait  la  grace  de  vivre,  est  tres 
humble  et  paisible,  mais  la  necessite  le  presse  ...  II  est  recherche  et  pratique 
d'ailleurs,  car  il  escript  tres  bien.  M''.  du  Fresne  I'a  recherche  pour  I'avoir  pres 
de  luy  en  Allemayne,  et  pour  le  gagner  luy  a  envoye  50!,  mais  il  a  tout  son 
coeur  a  ce  public,  mais  qu'il  puisse  vivoter,  prient  de  luy  faire  quelque  present  de 
I'argent  .  .  .'  The  expression  '  a  ce  public '  is  peculiar.  An  inhabitant  of 
Geneva  could  not  speak  of  his  country.  Geneva  was  a  city  of  refuge  filled  with 
foreigners,  whose  '  patrie '  was  France. 


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34  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

his  glory.  The  ministers  do  not  doubt  that  the  council 
intend  to  maintain  the  school  in  being,  but  they  would 
particularly  recommend  the  case  of  M.  Chevalier,  who 
discharges  very  well  his  duties  as  professor,  though  it 
may  be  he  has  not  many  pupils.  .  .  .  There  is  further 
the  sieur  Casaubon,  who  will  become  a  very  rare  person- 
age, if  God  of  his  mercy  grant  him  to  live ;  he  being  very 
humble  and  peaceable ;  but  he  is  in  great  necessity,  not- 
withstanding that  they,  the  ministers,  have  succoured  him 
to  the  best  of  their  ability.  He  is  already  sought  for  and 
courted  by  persons  abroad,  for  his  excellent  writings; 
M.  de  Fresne  has  desired  to  attach  him  to  himself  in 
Germany,  and  has  sent  him  fifty  crowns  with  this  object. 
Notwithstanding  he  has  his  whole  heart  in  the  service  of 
this  public ;  and  that  he  may  be  able  to  support  bare  life, 
they  pray  the  council  to  make  him  a  present  of  money 
out  of  the  unappropriated  funds  of  the  college,  e.  g.  fifty 
crowns,  adding  thereto  some  wheat  for  the  relief  of  his 
present  wants.' 

Hereupon  the  council  ordered  that  fifty  crowns  and  six 
bolls  of  wheat  be  delivered  to  Casaubon.  In  the  year 
following,  1592,  he  also  receives,  by  order  of  the  council, 
a  present  of  red  wine,  along  with  the  ministers  ^.  It  was 
an  exceptional  favour,  as  the  other  professors  are  not 
mentioned. 

The  republic  came  through  the  ordeal-  reduced  to  the 
lowest  ebb  of  fortune,  but  unbroken  in  spirit.  Each  pious 
bosom  felt  that  no  human  arm,  but  that  of  Providence 
alone,  had  interposed  to  save  the  bulwark  of  the  church. 
History,  perhaps,  has  never  crowded  into  two  years  a 
greater  number  of  surprising  events  impossible  to  predict. 
The  first  gleam  of  hope  came  from  the  side  of  France. 
The  signal  victory  of  Coutras,  October  20,  1587,  where 
the  '  jeunesse  doree '  of  the  party  of  massacre  went  down 

'  Geneva  mss.  Reg.  du  pet.  cons.  4  dec.  1592,  f".  235,  v».  .  .  .  '  Compre- 
nan:  avec  les  dites  ministres  le  S'.  Casaubon  professeur  en  grec' 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  25 

before  half  their  number  of  poor  and  despised  huguenots, 
gave  immediate  rehef.  Then  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart, 
the  annihilation  of  the  Arfnada,  the  assassination  of  the 
Guises,  the  union  of  the  two  Henrys  against  the  catholic 
League,  and  finally,  the  accession  of  Henri  iv,  all  these 
great  events  on  the  European  theatre  were  felt  at  Geneva, 
relaxing  the  tension  put  upon  its  strength — a  strain  which, 
had  it  been  continued,  must  have  ended  in  breaking.  In 
April,  1590,  Casaubon  can  write,  '  Our  affairs  are,  by  the 
mercy  of  almighty  God,  in  not  a  little  better  condition 
than  they  were  when  I  received  your  letter,  about  five 
months  back.' 

How  Casaubon  himself  struggled  through  these  dismal 
years  we  are  left  to  conjecture.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  we  have,  for  this  period,  neither  his  diary  nor  his 
letters— by  the  aid  of  which  we  shall  be  able,  in  the  later 
years  of  his  life,  to  follow  his  fortunes  with  minuteness 
and  accuracy.  The  principal  events  of  his  life  during  the 
years  of  distress  are, — the  course  of  his  studies ;  his  father's 
death ;  his  second  marriage. 

His  father,  Arnold,  was  attacked  with  low  fever  on 
January  i,  1586.  His  physician  pronounced  the  symptoms 
favourable,  and  foretold  a  speedy  recovery.  But  the  patient 
himself  was  convinced  he  should  never  rise  from  his  sick 
bed.  It  proved  so.  On  February  i  he  died,  not  of  age, 
he  was  only  63,  but  worn  out  with  the  sufferings  and 
anxieties  of  the '25  years  of  persecution.  His  death  took 
place  at  Die  in  Dauphine,  and  his  funeral  was  attended  by 
all  the  notables  of  the  town,  and  many  nobles  of  the 
province,  it  so  happening  that  a  synod  was  being  held 
at   the  time.     '^I   alone  of  his  children,'  writes   Isaac 


'  Isaac's  own  account  of  his  father  Arnold's  death  is  given  in  ep.  893  to  Lin- 
gelsheim  in  1613.  He  repeats  it  again,  with  fuller  detail,  in  '  Exercitt.  ad 
Baron.'  1614,  reproduced  in  Prideaux,  Castigatio,  p.  224.  The  shorter  accounts 
in  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  74,  and  Abbot,  Antilogia,  ep.  ad  lect.,  are  not  indepen- 
dent testimony,  being  both  communicated  by  Isaac, 


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36  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Casaubon,  'had  the  misfortune  to  be  absent.'  Isaac  re- 
ceived the  intelligence  while  he  was  writing  his  notes  on 
the  beginning  of  the  fifth  book  of  Strabo.  He  confides 
his  sorrow  to  his  commentary,  as  to  a  companion  and 
friend.  The  reader  of  Strabo  to  this  day  is  called  upon 
to  sympathise  with  Casaubon  in  his  bereavement,  in  the 
middle  of  a  difficulty  which  he  leaves  unexplained  for  that 
cause  ^  It  is  not  only  filial  affection  lacerated  by  death, 
premature  and  unexpected.  It  is  disgust  with  his  own 
occupation  at  the  moment,  when  brought  into  sudden 
contrast  with  the  memory  of  a  parent,  whose  every  thought 
and  every  hour  had  been  given  to  sacred  things  and  the 
cause  of  God.  'There  is  a  difficulty  here' — in  Strabo's 
account  of  the  southern  shore  of  the  Italian  peninsula^ 
'which  I  leave  to  others  who  have  more  leisure  for  such 
work.  I  have  neither  time  nor  spirit  for  the  discussion  of 
such  things.  My  mind,  overwhelmed  by  the  intelligence 
just  received,  has  no  more  taste  for  these  classical  studies, 
and  demands  a  different  strain  to  soothe  and  heal  it.' 
Years  afterwards,  when  it  became  necessary  for  the  Jesuit 
party  to  defame  Casaubon,  they  put  in  circulation  a  story 
that  his  father  had  been  hanged.  Gross  as  was  the  fabri- 
cation, it  wounded  Casaubon's  sensitive  nature,  and,  at  the 
distance  of  twenty-five  years,  harrowed  up  the  pang  with 
which  he  had  first  received  the  intelligence  of  his  parent's 
death,  himself,  alone  of  his  children,  away  from  his  bed 
side. 

His  father  died  on  February  i ;  in  April  Casaubon 
married  a  second  wife.  Prudent  it  cannot  have  been  in 
the  middle  of  the  pubHc  calamities,  when  even  his  poor 
£\Q  a  year  was  precarious,  to  marry  a  girl  of  eighteen 
without  fortune.  But  in  times  of  distress  men  seek  con- 
solation, not  welfare,  and  prudence  is  in  abeyance.  And 
there  were  many  things  to  recommend  the  match.     The 

'  Comm.  in  Strabon.  p.  211  [ed.  i6ao]. 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  27 

lady  had  beauty,  sense,  worth,  and  her  grandfather's  gen- 
tleness of  disposition.  Above  all,  Florence  Estienne  was 
the  daughter  of  the  great  printer,  Henri  Estienne  (Henricus 
Stephanus  11).  Casaubon  was  naturally  attracted  to  the 
editor  of  the  Thesaurus,  and  had  probably  fallen  in  love 
with  Estienne's  manuscript  collections,  before  he  began  to 
pay  his  court  to  the  daughter. 

But  there  was  a  difficulty  in  the  way,  over  and  above 
the  moody  and  fitful  temper,  which  was  growing  upon 
Estienne  with  his  failing  fortunes.  The  special  difficulty 
was  a  literary  offence.  In  1566  Henri  Estienne  brought 
out  one  of  his  most  magnificent  volumes,  his  '  Poetae 
grasci,'  the  cost  of  producing  which  must  have  been  very 
heavy.  But  no  sooner  was  it  out,  than  Crespin  put  out 
a  pocket  volume  of  poets,  containing  the  Bucohc  and 
Gnomic  poets,  who  had  formed  a  part  of  Estienne's 
'  Corpus '  (1569).  Estienne  replied  by  a  pocket  edition 
of  the  Idyllic  poets  (1579).  Vignon,  Crespin's  successor, 
retorted  in  1584  with  a  new  edition  of  the  book  of  1569, 
on  cheaper  paper.  He  solicited,  and  obtained,  in  an  evil 
hour,  from  Casaubon,  a  few  pages  of  criticism  to  enliven 
and  recommend  his  volume.  The  rival  books  are,  in 
externals,  precisely  alike.  And,  as  Estienne  flourished  on 
his  title  page  '  Observationes  Henrici  Stephani  in  Theo- 
critum,'  Vignon  has  upon  his  '  Isaaci  Hortiboni  Theocri- 
ticarum  lectionum  libellus.'  Henri  Estienne,  whose  profits 
on  his  Greek  books  were,  to  say  the  least,  doubtful, 
naturally  resented  the  rivalry  in  his  own  domain,  especially 
if,  as  is  almost  always  the  case,  to  competition  was  added 
underselling.  But  this  was  not  the  worst.  Estienne  had, 
in  each  of  his  editions,  given  emendations  of  the  text  of 
Theocritus.  To  correct  over  the  irascible  veteran's  head 
was  indiscreet,  and  Casaubon  felt  it  to  be  so.  He  tried 
to  mitigate  the  storm  by  inscribing  his  '  Lectiones  Theo- 
criticas '  to  Estienne  himself,  and  apologising  most  humbly 
for  their  appearance  at  all.     '  He  had  allowed  Vignon  to 

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28  ISAAC  CASAVBON.  [Seci-. 

get  a  promise  from  him  in  an  unguarded  moment.  He 
had  tried  to  be  off  it  afterwards,  but  Vignon  held  him  to 
his  pledge.  It  was  difficult  for  him  even  to  glean  after 
Estienne's  harvest.  His  poor  production  consisted  merely 
of  notes  jotted  down  some  time  before,  for  his  own  use, 
and  without  any  view  to  print.'  '  Should  you  ever  con- 
descend to  go  through  them,  you  will  greatly  oblige  me 
if  you  will  mark  all  you  disapprove  with  a  red  pencil. 
Nothing  will  satisfy  me,  but  what  I  find  to  be  satisfactory 
to  you.'  In  later  years  Casaubon  learned  to  estimate 
better  the  value  of  Estienne's  '  red  pencil.'  This  abject 
sentence  disappeared  from  the  dedication  when  it  was 
reprinted  by  Commelin  in  1596. 

Besides  this  offence,  the  youth  of  Florence  and  the 
poverty  of  Casaubon  were  grounds  on  which  the  father 
might  justly  disapprove  the  match.  But  he  did  not  inter- 
fere to  prevent  it,  perhaps  because  he  was  occupied  with 
a  suit  on  his  own  account.  Immediately  on  the  expiry 
of  his  year's  widowhood,  April  24,  1586,  Casaubon  and 
Florence  Estienne  were  married,  in  S.  Peter's,  and  on 
May  9,  Henri  Estienne  espoused  his  third  wife,  Abigail 
Pouppart. 

How  tenderly  Casaubon  was  attached  to  his  wife  is 
evident  throughout  his  diary.  Even  the  moments  of 
impatience,  consigned  to  the  pages  of  that  secret  record, 
may  be  taken  to  prove  affection  and  general  harmony. 
He  certainly  complains  bitterly  on  one  occasion  of  her 
interrupting  him*.  But  over  and  above  Casaubon's  con- 
stitutional fretfulness,  we  must  make  allowance  for  the 
irritability  engendered  by  a  life  of  hard  reading  against 
time.  Casaubon  thought  every  moment  lost  in  which 
he  was  not  acquiring  knowledge.  He  resented  intrusion 
as  a  cruel  injury.  To  take  up  his  time  was  to  rob  him 
of  his  only  property.    Casaubon's  imagination  was  im- 

'^  See  note  C  in  Appendix. 

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JI.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  39 

pressed  in  a  painful  degree  with  the  truth  of  the  dictum 
'ars  longa,  vita  brevis.'  As  though  with  a  presentiment 
that  the  end  would  come  to  him  early,  he  struggles,  all 
through  a  life  of  harass,  to  have  his  time  for  himself. 
To  his  wife  struggling  also,  in  her  way,  with  the  cares 
of  a  large  household  and  narrow  means,  he  may  naturally 
have  seemed  at  times  apathetic  to  her  difficulties,  and 
selfishly  '  burying  himself  in  his  books.'  This  is  the  true 
interpretation  of  the  exceptional  allusions  in  the  diary. 
Its  general  tone  is  that  of  true  affection.  When  she  is 
away  from  him  he  writes  to  her  by  every  post,  and  some- 
times cannot  give  his  attention  to  his  books  owing  to  the 
pain  he  suffers  at  her  absence.  June  1599,  '  curae  domes- 
ticae  molestissimae  et  dolor  ex  uxoris  absentia  studia  mea 
impediverunt.'  '  To-day  I  got  two  letters  from  my  wife. 
When  will  the  day  come  that  I  shall  see  her  again?' 
Every  illness  of  hers  is  recorded,  and  his  time,  of  which 
he  is  avaricious,  is  devoted  to  waiting  upon  her.  Except 
in  being  too  prolific^, — they  had  eighteen  children, — she 
proved  an  excellent  scholar's  wife,  according  to  the  model 
which  is  still  traditional  in  Germany.  She  did  not  enter 
into  her  husband's  pursuits,  but  she  encouraged  and 
sustained  his  temper  naturally  given  to  despondency. 
She  is  his  '  steady  partner  in  all  his  vexations,'  ep.  750. 
She  relieves  him  of  all  domestic  cares,  so  that,  as  he 
complains  to  archbishop  Spotswood,  'when  she  is  absent 
from  him,  he  finds  himself  lost  and  helpless.^'  She  is 
sure  to  find,  if  it  can  be  found,  a  valuable  volume  belong- 
ing to  Lingelsheim  '  because  whatever  she  knows  I  have 
at  heart,  she  has  at  heart.'  In  1613  he  writes,  '^I  know 
by  experience  what  a  great  help  in  our  studies  is  an 
agreeable  and  dearly-beloved  wife.'    There  is  something 

1  Geneva  mss.  Reg.  du  pet.  cons.  17  oct.  1595,  f .  184 :  '  Sur  la  n^cessitd  de 
sa  faraille  qui  s'augmente  annuellement^  says  the  order  in  council,  not  without  a 
touch  of  humour. 

2  Kp.  1047.  '  Ep.  853. 


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30  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

touchingly  simple  in  Florence's  entry  in  the  Ephemerides, 
the  solitary  entry  in  her  handwriting,  February  23,  1601. 
Casaubon  had  gone  out  of  Paris  for  the  night,  to  attend 
the  protestant  worship,  a  journey  not  without  risk  from 
the  fanatical  and  ferocious  cathohc  mob  of  Paris.  Mad^ 
Casaubon  takes  the  volume  and  writes  'ce  jour  dit, 
M.  Casaubon  a  este  absent,  que  Dieu  garde,  et  moi,  at 
les  nostres  avec  lui.'  Her  economical  talent  comes  out  in 
the  birthday  present  she  brought  her  husband  in  1604 — 
a  purse  of  more  than  100  gold  crowns,  the  saving  of  her 
thrift  out  of  their  scanty  income. 

In  other  respects  the  connection  with  the  Estienne 
family  brought  with  it  nothing  but  vexation.  Henri's 
fortunes  were  brought  to  the  lowest  ebb,  and  that  by 
his  own  neglect.  Florence's  dower,  whatever  it  was  that 
was  promised,  remained  unpaid  at  her  father's  death. 
'^To  hope  to  get  my  wife's  dower  paid  by  Estienne,' 
Casaubon  writes  in  1596,  '  would  be  to  hope  for  water 
from  the  rock.'  Nor  was  it  only  loss  of  fortune  that  he 
had  to  suffer.  He  had  the  mortification  of  seeing  one, 
who  bore  a  name  honoured  through  Christendom,  and 
who  had  achieved  so  much  for  learning,  losing  daily  the 
respect  of  others  and  his  own,  and  lowering  himself  to 
become  a  sycophant  and  a  beggar  at  the  doors  of  bishops 
and  princes.  Estienne  was  a  perfect  dragon  in  the  close 
keeping  of  his  books  and  mss.  So  far  from  marriage 
with  his  daughter  opening  to  Casaubon  the  father-in-law's 
library,  Casaubon  was  more  rigidly  excluded  from  it  after 
than  before  his  marriage.  Though  Estienne  was  absent 
on  his  wanderings  for  months — even  years— at  a  time 
Casaubon  never  saw  the  inside  of  the  library,  except  on 
the  one  memorable  occasion  on  which  he  and  Florence 
summoned  courage  to  break  it  open.  Speaking  of  a 
new  book  of  Camerarius,  Casaubon  writes  to  Bongars^ 

'  Ep.  loio.  8  Ep.  21. 

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"•]  GENEVA.      1578-1596.  31 

'  Read  it  I  have  not ;  seen  it  I  have ;  but  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  Henri  Estienne,  who  would  not  so  much  as 
allow  me  to  touch,  much  less  read  it,  while  he  is  every 
day  using,  or  abusing,  my  books  as  if  they  were  his  own/ 
Richard  Thomson  applied  to  Casaubon  to  get  him  the 
loan  of  the  ms.  of  Sextus  Empiricus.  The  greek  text 
of  Sextus  was  not  yet  printed  in  1594,  but  Estienne  had 
a  Florence  transcript,  which  he  had  bought  in  Italy  in 
1555.  Casaubon  is  obliged  to  reply  to  Thomson:  '^AU 
that  I  have  is  yours.     But  the  ms.  of  Empiricus  belongs 

to (Henri  Estienne).     You  know  the  man  and  his 

peculiarities.  I  have  no  influence  with  him  whatever. 
He  seems  to  have  entered  into  a  conspiracy  for  his  own 
ruin.  Indeed  he  is  not  here  (Geneva)  as  your  letter 
assumes.  For  the  last  nine  months  he  has  been  on  his 
wanderings  about  Germany,  settling  nowhere.'  Casaubon 
had  been  allowed  the  use  of  this  greek  Sextus,  and 
had  quoted  a  long  passage  from  it  in  the  '  notes  on  Dio- 
genes,' 1593,  brandishing  it  in  the  reader's  eyes  as  '  noster 
codex.'  He  is  now  driven  to  confess  to  Thomson,  that 
he  had  gone  too  far.  It  was  not  only  not  his,  but  he 
could  not  even  have  the  use  of  it. 

It  will  surprise  no  proprietor  of  mss.  that  Estienne 
should  have  been  jealous  of  his  treasures,  and  that  he 
should  have  preferred  to  retain  the  power  of  producing 
the  Editio  princeps  of  Sextus  Empiricus  to  himself  In 
our  own  day,  Cardinal  Mai  wished  to  monopolise  the 
whole  of  the  greek  mss.  in  the  Vatican.  And  Casaubon 
was  specially  dangerous,  as  being  ready  and  able  to  cor- 
rect and  pubUsh  any  greek  he  could  lay  his  hands  on. 
Sylburgius  knew  this,  and  would  not  trust  his  transcript 
t)f  Scylax  (then,  1594,  unprinted)  for  an  hour  in  his  hands. 
And  the  same  instinct  was  latent  in  Casaubon  himself. 
At  a  later  period  when  his  own  books  and  papers  had 

'  Ep.  la. 


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33  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

become  valuable,  he  leaves  the  strictest  orders,  on  sailing 
for  England,  that  '^no  one  in  the  world  be  allowed  to 
touch  or  handle  them.'  And  Casaubon  exaggerates  the 
facts  when  he  says  Estienne  would  lend  him  no  books. 
Both  in  the  Strabo  and  in  the  Athenaeus  he  derived 
material  assistance  from  collations  which  Henri  Estienne 
had  made  in  Italy.  His  expression  about  the  Strabo  seems 
indeed  to  intimate  that  it  had  been  obtained  with  difficulty. 
'  ^  Postquam  codicem  suum  optime  de  literis  meritus  socer 
Henricus  Stephanus  nobis  concessit.' 

But  the  regard  and  respect  which  Casaubon  entertained 
for  the  veteran,  whose  enthusiasm  for  greek  learning 
had  been  his  ruin,  was  proof  against  Estienne's  jealousy, 
and,  what  he  must  have  felt  keenly,  the  old  man's  self- 
exposure  of  garrulous  senility  through  his  press.  Casau- 
bon contributed  to  his  editions,  deteriorating  from  year 
to  year,  to  the  Thucydides  of  1588,  the  latin  Dionysius 
of  the  same  year,  the  Plinius  of  1591,  and  to  the  Diogenes 
Laertius  of  1593.  He  was  jealously  excluded  from  all 
share  in  the  text  and  translation,  or  from  any  control 
of  the  contents  of  the  volumes.  What  he  gave  was  ex- 
torted from  his  good  nature,  that  the  title  page  of  a  badly 
edited  book  might  be  decorated  by  the  name  of  Casaubon. 
Anger  was  lost  in  pity.  Gruter  sends  Casaubon  his 
Seneca,  1593,  in  which  were  some  sharp  reflections  on 
Estienne.  Casaubon,  who  knew  how  just  they  were, 
expostulates  with  Gruter.  '^  There  was  but  one  draw- 
back to  the  pleasure  I  had  in  reading  your  book — you 
know  what.  I  could  not  but  feel  pain  at  your  strictures 
on  one  so  nearly  related  to  me.  Believe  me,  my  friend, 
when  I  say  that,  if  you  only  knew  the  man  himself  and 
his  ways,  even  now  you  could  not  help  loving  him.' 
All  grievances  were  forgotten  when  the  melancholy  end 
came  in  1598.     In   lamenting  the  'charissimum  caput' 

'  Burney  Mss.  367.  p.  66 :  '  Personne  du  monde  ne  les  manie  ni  touche.' 
^  Comm.  in  Strab.  p.  161.  s  Ep.  979, 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  33 

in  his  diary,  Casaubon  was  only  thinking  of  the  better 
days  of  Henri's  youth,  and  hopes  that  he  himself  may 
imitate  his  father-in-law's  unwearied  industry  in  learning. 

As  his  family  increased,  Casaubon  began  to  feel  the 
pressure  of  distress.  His  wife's  portion  was  not  to  be 
had,  and  in  the  disturbed  state  of  France  it  was  impossible 
to  reahse  his  father's  estate.  Besides,  the  widow  still 
lived,  and  had  to  be  provided  for.  Casaubon  was  obliged 
to  appeal  to  the  council.  The  treasury  of  the  republic 
was  in  no  better  plight  than  that  of  its  citizens.  But, 
necessitous  as  they  were,  they  did  not  refuse  to  help 
Casaubon.  October  28,  1594,  a  bonus  of  300  florins 
(genevese)  is  voted  '^au  sieur  Isaac  Casaubon  qui  sert 
cette  academie  avec  beaucoup  d'honneur,  qui  est  dans 
la  necessite,  et  qui  se  plaint  de  ne  pouvoir  vivre  de  ses 
gages.'  This  indulgence  to  Casaubon  must  be  ascribed, 
not  so  much  to  personal  esteem,  as  to  the  circumstance 
that  his  classical  lectures  were  the  mainstay  of  the 
academy.  This  we  may  infer  not  only  from  the  general 
distress  of  the  treasury,  which  must  have  precluded  all 
sentimental  largesses,  but  from  the  fact  that,  two  years 
later,  one  of  the  law  professors,  Jacques  Lect,  was  dis- 
missed altogether.  And  Lect  was  a  more  considerable 
person  in  the  city  than  Casaubon,  and  was,  at  the  time 
that  he  was  cashiered,  member  of  the  council.  But  he 
was  not  indispensable.  For  he  was  one  of  two  law  pro- 
fessors, and  could,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  a  superfluity. 
Lect  remonstrated,  pleading  that  he  had  embarked  his 
prospects  in  the  career  of  law  teacher,  and  had  besides 
hurt  his  fortune  by  buying  the  large  quantity  of  books 
which  was  necessary.  But  his  appeal  was  in  vain.  We 
may  hazard  the  conjecture,  though  the  historians  are 
silent,  that  there  was  a  jealousy  between  the  two  gowns, 
between  church  and  law.    At  any  rate  we  find  that  the 

'  Registre  du  conseil,  Gr^nus,  p.  76. 
D 

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34  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

faculty  of  law  was  introduced  into  the  academy,  by  the 
council,  in  the  teeth  of  a  remonstrance  from  the  pastors. 
In  this  remonstrance  they  allege,  amongst  other  objec- 
tions to  the  study  of  law,  '^that  those,  who  apply  them- 
selves to  this  faculty,  are  for  the  most  part  of  dissolute 
habits,  being  young  men  of  quality,  whose  humour  would 
not  admit  of  their  being  subject  to  the  discipline  of  this 
church.'  It  may  be  that  Lect  was  thus  punished  by  the 
ministers'  party  for  opposition  in  the  council,  where  an 
able  lawyer,  '^gentil  personage,'  like  Lect,  might  make 
himself  troublesome. 

We  may  certainly  infer  from  the  fact  of  an  augmenta- 
tion being  granted  to  Casaubon,  at  a  moment  when  the 
treasury  was  empty,  that  his  means  were  confessedly 
straitened.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  his  indigence  his  collection  of  books.  The  valuable 
library  he  left  at  his  death  in  1614  must  have  been,  in 
great  part,  the  acquisition  of  later  years.  Yet  we  know 
that  before  1597  he  was  in  possession  of  a  fund  of  books, 
rich  both  as  to  number  and  selection.  The  handlist 
which  he  made  when  he  shipped  his  books  for  Mont- 
peUier  is  preserved  ^  They  made  thirteen  bales,  and 
amount  to  450  articles — not  volumes.  Many  authors, 
such  as  S.  Augustine,  fill  several  volumes  folio.  Not 
a  few  Mss.  are  among  them. 

From  Casaubon's  commentaries  we  see  that  the  style 
of  his  work  demanded  nothing  less  than  a  complete  col- 
lection of  the  classical  remains.  He  wants  to  found  his 
remarks,  not  on  this  or  that  passage,  but  on  a  complete 
induction.  It  seems  easy  for  Bentley*  to  say,  '  Astypaltea 
of  Crete  does  not  once  occur  in  ancient  authors.'  But 
a  lifetime  is  behind  this  negation.  It  is  noticeable,  how 
early  in  his  career  Casaubon  had  begun  to  transcend 


'  Reg.  du  conseil,  Grtnus,  p.  46.  =  Scaligerana  2».  p.  138. 

'  Adversaria,  torn.  22.  *  Diss,  upon  Phalaris,  Works,  i.  368. 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  35 

the  sphere  of  printed  greek.  In  the  '  Notes  on  Diogenes,' 
aet.  25,  we  find  that  he  had  managed  to  beg,  borrow,  or 
buy  many  anecdota— Polyaenus ;  Photius;  a  fi-agment  of 
Theocritus ;  a  Theodoret  '  De  servandis  affectibus,'  lent 
him  by  Pacius;  Scholia  on  Euripides,  given  him  by 
Galesius^  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Casaubon  could 
at  this,  or  any  time,  buy  ancient  greek  mss.  What  he 
bought  were  transcripts  made  for  sale.  These  were  manu- 
factured by  Darmarius  ^-  Darmarius  was  one  of  the  last 
of  the  calligraphs,  a  race  who  long  survived  the  invention 
of  printing.  Darmarius—'  homo  graecus,'  says  Casaubon, 
with  a  tinge  of  bitterness  at  the  recollection  of  some  of 
his  bargains— had,  it  should  seem,  access  to  the  library 
at  Venice,  and  went  about  Europe  to  sell  his  copies. 
His  transcripts  are  no  'livres  de  luxe,'  Hke  the  produc- 
tions of  the  pen  of  a  Vergecio  or  a  Rhosus — true  works 
of  art,  made  to  adorn  the  collections  of  princes  and  cardi- 
nals. Darmarius'  books  are  hasty  transcripts,  on  poor 
paper,  of  any  inedita  he  could  get  hold  of  in  Bessarion's 
library.  Casaubon  may  naturally  have  preferred,  with 
S.  Jerome  ^,  correct  books  to  ornamental  books,  but  this 
he  did  not  get  from  Darmarius.  The  transcripts  of 
Darmarius  do  not  make  up  for  their  want  of  external 
beauty  by  accuracy  of  text;  for  the  transcriber  does 
not  seem  to  have  known  even  the  grammar  of  classical 
greek.     For  these  wretched  copies  he  was  able  to  extract 

'  Notae  in  Diogenem,  pp.  3,  14,  16,  79   120. 

'  On  Darmarius,  see  Ignatius  Hardt,  Prsefat.  in  Julii  Pollucis  Chronicon, 
Monachii  1792.  Hardt  calls  him  Andreas  Darmarius  Epidaurius,  and  quotes 
his  own  statement  that  he  transcribed  this  Chronicon  from  a  codex  in  the 
'bibliotheca  regia  Hispana.'  [See  also  Gardthausen,  'Griechische  Palao- 
graphie,'  p.  312.] 

^  S.  Hieronym.  prsef.  in  Job :  '  Habeant  qui  volunt  veteres  libros,  vel  in 
membranis  purpureis  auro  argentoque  descriptos,  vel  uncialibus,  ut  vulgo  aiunt, 
litteris,  onera  magis  exarata  quam  codices,  dummodo  mihi  meisque  permittant 
pauperes  habere  schedulas,  et  non  tam  pulchros  codices  quam  emendatos.' 
Mindful  of  the  precept  of  Plinius,  '  fateri  per  quos  profeceris,'  I  must  confess  to 
owe  this  passage,  so  important  for  the  history  of  palaeography,  to  Cobet's  Varr. 
Lectt.  p.  5,  note.     Cobet  derived  it  from  Eckhel,  Doctr.  Numm.  v.  4. 

D2 

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36  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

sums  really  vast.  For  the  Polysenus  Casaubon  had  given 
a  great  sum — 'magno  £ere.'  A  Julius  Africanus  was  sold 
to  him,  by  the  same  vendor,  for  300  crowns,  '^almost 
its  weight  in  silver.'  But  Polyaenus  and  Africanus  were 
not  then  in  print,  and  Casaubon  must  have  them.  But 
of  his  printed  books  many,  the  greek  and  hebrew  espe- 
cially, were  not  books  to  be  found  in  the  shops.  Even 
new  books,  though  their  prices  seem  to  us  low,  were 
not  cheaper  in  relation  to  the  means  of  subsistence,  then 
than  now.  And  then,  as  now,  if  you  wanted  to  make 
a  book  come  specially  for  yourself  from  a  distance,  you 
were  obliged  to  pay  for  it.  We  find  Casaubon,  in  his 
earhest  correspondence,  setting  his  friends  to  hunt  for 
books  difficult  to  procure.  In  1596,  when  Sylburgius' 
library  is  to  be  sold  at  Heidelberg,  Casaubon  writes 
to  Commehn,  '  if  there  is  anything  scarce  in  it  ^  to  secure 
it,  that  it  may  not  get  into  hands  that  can  do  nothing 
with  it.'  He  had  commissioned  the  Genevan  bookseller 
to  get  him  the  Roman  Septuagint  of  1587,  '  at  any  cost ' 
— '  quovis  pretio.'  When  Richard  Thomson  was  in  Italy, 
he  offered  to  look  out  books  for  Casaubon  3.  Casaubon 
writes  in  reply  *  '  I  need  send  you  no  list  of  desiderata. 
My  little  stock  of  books  is  well  known  to  you,  and  since 
you  were  here,  I  have  not  acquired  anything  fresh.  Be- 
sides, knowing  as  I  do  your  forwardness  to  do  anything 
for  me,  I  cannot  think  of  thus  abusing  your  generosity. 
However,  if  you  should  come  across  anything  which  I 
have  not  seen,  hebrew,  greek,  or  latin,  it  will  be  very 
welcome.'  With  the  same  independent  feeling,  he  writes, 
on  another  occasion,  to  Lambert  Canter^  that  he  shall 
only  ask  him  to  procure  books,  on  the  condition  that 
he  (Casaubon)  is  to  pay  for  them.     Later,   in   1608,  we 

^  Ep.  S27  ;  '  Psene  contra  aurum.'     ^n.  Tact.  p.  220,  Sueton.  p.  47,  ed.  1611. 
^  Ep.  1004  :   '  Si  distrahatur  Sylburgii  supellex,  et  sit  aliquid  rari,  id  qu^so 
vel  tibi,  vel  mihi  compara.' 
»  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  225.  •  Ep.  79,  August  1596.  «  Ep.  881. 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  37 

find  ^  Biondi  having  a  standing  commission  to  send  books 
from  Venice  to  Casaubon. 

How  the  means  of  this  outlay  were  obtained  we  do 
not  know,  while  he  was  at  the  same  time  supplicating 
the  council  for  bare  subsistence.  Some  may  have  been 
paid  in  kind.  He  tells  Commelin^  that  he  'will  settle" 
his  debt  to  him  either  by  exchanging  books  with  him, 
or  in  some  other  way.'  Both  publishers  and  authors 
were  always  forward  to  send  him  copies  of  their  learned 
publications.  But  then  this  had  to  be  met,  either  by  a 
return  of  copies  of  Casaubon's  books,  or  by  some  service ; 
e.g.  Sebastian  Henrici-Petri  of  Bale^  sends  him  two 
copies  of  his  second  edition  of  Homer,  one  for  the  king, 
and  one  for  himself,  but  with  the  request  that  he  would 
get  him  a  copyright  privilege  for  France.  Besides  new 
publications,  presents  of  rarities  were  sometimes  made 
him  by  wealthy  friends  or  patrons.  He  seems  to  have* 
begged  books  of  Canaye  de  Fresne,  who  responded  to 
the  appeal  with  great  liberality.  Bongars,  especially,  is 
thanked  ^  for  '  various  gifts,'  some  of  which  were  books. 
Thomson,  though  not  wealthy,  had  sent  him  at  least 
three  parcels  of  books  before  1596.  Loans  of  great  value 
were  not  seldom  made  him  for  the  purposes  of  his  various 
editions.  These  loans  either  became  by  lapse  of  time 
property,  Casaubon  being  tacitly  suffered  to  retain  them, 
or,  if  he  were  still  intending  to  use  them,  were  never 
returned.  Certain  it  is  that,  at  his  death,  in  1614,  many 
such  were  found  in  his  possession,  and  never  reverted  to 
the  owners.  Among  these  may  be  identified  a  ms.  Poly- 
aenus  which  belonged  to  Bongars,  having  been  a  present 
from  the  court  physician,  Superville.  Hoeschel  of  Augs- 
burg had  lent  a  valuable  ms.  of  the  epitome  of  Athenaeus. 

'  Burney  mss.  365.  p.  285. 

^  Ep.  81 :  '  Contractum  apud  te  ses  alienum,  vel  pifiXla  avrl  fii0\ioiv  rependens, 
vel  alia  ratione  expungam.' 

2  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  250.  •*  Ep.  972.  ^  Ep.  1008. 


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38  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Hoeschel  outlived  Casaubon,  but  never  got  his  Athenaeus 
again,  both  it  and  the  Polyaenus  having  been  impounded, 
for  the  king's  library.  Another  ms.  of  Hoeschel's,  an 
Excerpta  of  Polybius,  and  another  Polybius  which  had 
been  lent  by  de  Mesmes,  remained  in  England,  and  getting 
into  Selden's  hands,  became  part  of  his  collection  by  this 
process  of  adhesion.  The  same  account  is  probably  to 
be  given  of  a  ms.  Porphyrius  de  Prosodia,  which  had 
been  part  of  Corbinelli's  collection,  and  was  found  among 
Casaubon's  books  at  his  death. 

All  these  forms  of  supply  were  insufficient  to  feed  his 
reading.  He  writes  to  de  Thou  (1595),  '  ^  No  want,  and 
I  have  many,  is  so  sensibly  felt  by  me  as  the  want  of 
books — books  absolutely  necessary  for  what  I  am  writing. 
The  old  martyrologies  e.g.  among  others.  And  there 
are  other  books  which  are  indispensable  for  the  elucida- 
tion of  antiquity,  which  I  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to 
procure  here  (Geneva),  and  perhaps  never  shall.' 

On  the  whole  we  may  conclude  that  Casaubon  had 
strained  his  narrow  means  in  this  one  direction  of  ex- 
pense. Pinched  everywhere  else,  he  spent  all  he  could 
save  on  books  2.  Book-buying  was  to  him  not  the  indul- 
gence of  a  taste  or  a  passion,  it  was  the  acquisition  of  tools. 
While  mere  bibliomania  is  insatiable,  the  books  wanted 
for  a  given  investigation  are  an  assignable  quantity.  At 
the  present  day,  when  the  book-trade  is  organised,  a 
collection  of  classics,  complete  enough  to  work  with, 
may  be  made  in  no  long  time.  But  at  the  period  of 
which  we  write,  when  there  were  no  advertisements,  no 
booksellers'  catalogues,  and  hardly  any  booksellers  (as 
distinct  from  printers),  this  was  not  possible.  Your  only 
means  of  knowing  what  new  books  were  being  published 
was  to  attend   the  half-yearly   fair  at   Frankfort.      Even 

1  Ep.  28. 

'  Ep.  972  :  '  Reculas  psene  omnes  meas  in  aliis  omne  genus  libris  absumsi.' 
Ep.  225  :  He  sold  books  he  had  read,  to  buy  others  with. 

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"■]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  39 

then  you  would  only  see  the  books  of  those  printers 
who  attended  the  fair,  and  the  stock  they  brought  with 
them.  Each  printer  only  troubled  himself  about  the  sale 
of  his  own  publications,  and  in  very  rare  cases  consented 
to  sell  those  of  another  firm.  In  1595,  Casaubon  writes 
to  CommeHn  at  Heidelberg,  '^If  I  ask  you  to  send  me 
direct  all  that  issues  from  your  press,  it  is  not,  believe 
me  dearest  Commelin,  because  I  am  unwilling  to  buy 
them,  but  because  I  am  unable.  Our  booksellers  here 
(Geneva)  are  a  blind  sort  who  don't  care  to  bring  back 
(from  Frankfort)  what  they  think  will  not  pay.  I  except 
Favre,  who  is  not  so  stupid  as  the  rest.  _  From  him  I 
bought  such  of  yours  as  I  have  got.  You  will  have  to 
write  to  de  Tournes  (a  genevan  printer)  to  order  him  to 
deliver  me  the  Chrysostom,  as  he  refuses  to  do  so,  till 
he  has  your  express  commands.'  From  Rostock  the 
lawyer  Hanniel  writes  to  Scaliger  (1607),  '^I  have  not 
been  lucky  enough  to  see  your  Eusebius  yet.  The  in- 
difference, or  shall  I  say  greed,  of  our  booksellers  is 
such  that  they  give  themselves  no  trouble  about  good 
books,  but  only  think  of  their  profits.' 

Nor  was  the  limitation  of  a  private  collection  made 
good,  as  in  our  day,  by  a  great  public  library.  It  is  true 
that  Geneva,  even  then,  had  a  public  library,  which  con- 
tained many  valuable  books.  It  was  a  legacy  from 
Bonivard.  Here  Casaubon  found  the  Apuleius  of  1469 
and  the  Suetonius  of  1470 ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  was 
the  possession  of  these  books  that  determined  him  to 
become  the  editor  of  those  authors  ^  But  the  collection, 
though  valuable,  was  small.  '  Happy  they,'  writes  Casau- 
bon to  Pithou,  'who  enjoy  such  libraries  as  yours  and 
that  of  your  brother.  Here  (Geneva)  there  is  no  one 
who  can  assist  me  with  the  loan  of  so  much  as  a  single 

'  Ep.  44.  '  Burmann,  Syll.  2.  743. 

'  On  Casaubon's  Suetonius,  see  F.  A.  Wolf  in  his  preface  to  Suetonii  Opera, 
Leipzig,  1802. 


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40  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

old  book.  As  for  Estienne  ...  he  guards  his  books  as 
the  Indian  griffins  do  their  gold;  he  lets  them  go  to 
rack  and  ruin ;  but  what  he  has  or  what  he  has  not  got, 
I  am  entirely  ignorant '  (ep.  41).  And  again :  '  ^  It  has 
been  my  ill-fortune  not  to  be  able  to  come  by  any  books 
but  common  ones.  So  that  the  learned  should  make 
allowances  for  me,  if  in  my  writings  they  find  no  traces, 
or  but  few,  of  that  more  recondite  learning  which  is  only 
to  be  gathered  from  worm-eaten  pages.'  The  expression 
used  here,  'blattarii  libri,'  would  include  both  mss.  and 
early  editions,  of  the  importance  of  which  in  formmg  a 
text  Casaubon  had  lately  become  aware.  This  cry  for 
more  books  was  not  the  mere  craving  of  a  gluttonous 
reader,  but  a  demand  for  materials  for  projected  works. 
We  shall  therefore  not  be  surprised  to  find  this  necessity 
among  the  causes  inducing  him  to  leave  Geneva  ^ 

As  illustrating  Casaubon's  circumstances,  may  be  related 
the  episode  of  his  acquaintance  with  Sir  Henry  Wotton. 
On  June  22,  1593,  young  Henry  Wotton,  then  in  his 
twenty-fifth  year,  arrived  at  Geneva,  in  the  course  of  a 
prolonged  tour  which  had  been  extended  over  Germany, 
Austria,  Italy,  and  Switzerland.  It  was  rather  a  residence 
on  the  continent  than  a  tour,  for  he  was  nine  years  absent 
from  England  altogether,  acquiring  that  knowledge  of 
foreign  languages,  which  afterwards  qualified  him  for  the 
Venetian  embassy.  At  the  time  of  his  arrival  at  Geneva 
he  was  poor  and  unknown.  It  so  chanced  that  he  took 
up  his  lodging  in  the  house  of  Casaubon,  to  whom  he 
was  recommended  by  Richard  Thomson.  Wotton's  first 
impressions  of  Geneva  are,  though  only  a  glimpse,  a 
graphic  picture  of  its  interior  in  those  years. 

Aug.  22,  1593,  to  Lord  Zouch  s.— '  Here  I  am  placed,  to 

'  Ep.  76. 

"  Cf.  Ep.  980  :  '  Nos,  in  eo  terrarum  angulo  positi,  ubi  scripta  ejus  generis 
non  facile  reperiuntur,  quaedam  nulla  diligentia  consequi  adhuc  possumus.' 
This  was  in  1594.  3  Reliquiae  Wottoniana,  p.  710. 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  41 

my  very  great  contentment,  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Isaac 
Casaubon,  a  person  of  sober  condition  among  the  French. 
.  .  .  Concerning  news,  your  honour  knows  we  are  here 
rather  scholars  than  politicians,  and  sooner  good  than 
wise.  Yet  thus  much  I  must  say,  that  the  state  of  the 
town  is  undone  with  war,  even  in  manners,  for  certainly 
I  have  not  seen  worse  temptations  in  Italy.  Not  to  let 
your  honour  be  melancholy,  I  cannot  abstain  to  tell  you, 
that  since  the  dayes  began  to  shorten,  the  women,  before 
seeming  to  have  digested  certain  humors  with  walking, 
do  now  shell  hemp  till  an  hour  or  two  in  the  night,  upon 
the  bankes  (benches)  in  the  street,  and  fires  before  them 
made  of  those  shales,  a  custom  drawing  with  it  many 
pretty  examples  and  opportunities.  In  short,  it  was  three 
days  since  forbidden  with  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  ^ 
Some  accuse  the  war,  and  lay  the  fault  upon  the  Dutch 
(Germans)  as  having  brought  into  the  town  intemperance 
and  ebriety,  and  such  other  evils  as  follow  them.' 

Casaubon  was  charmed  with  his  inmate.  Wotton 
according  to  Walton  (Life)  was  'of  a  choice  shape,  tall 
of  stature,  and  of  a  most  persuasive  behaviour,  which  was 
so  mixed  with  sweet  discourse  and  civilities,  as  gained 
him  much  love  from  all  persons  with  whom  he  entered 
into  an  acquaintance.'  Against  such  winning  qualities 
Casaubon  was  not  proof,  and  allowed  the  gay  English- 
man to  run  in  debt  to  him  for  part  of  his  year's  board 
and  lodging.  The  usual  tariff  for  board  and  lodging  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  about  ninety  florins.  Wotton,  when  at 
Vienna,  paid  two  florins  a  week  for  '  chamber,  stove  and 
table,'  at  which  rate  he  reckoned  that  it  cost  him  more 
by  ;^5  4s.  yearly  than  it  would   cost  a  'good   careful 


'  Ordinances  or  proclamations  of  the  council  were  by  ancient  custom  so  made 
known  in  the  Swiss  towns,  Jussie,  Levain,  etc.  p.  21  ;  'A  son  trompette ' ;  and 
Gaullieur,  Etudes  sur  la  Typographic  Genevoise,  p.  96,  quotes  the  Registre  du 
conseil,  9  mai,  1539  r  '  Arrets  qu'on  fasse  publier  a  voix  de  trompe,  que  nul  n'aye 
a  imprimer  chose  que  soit    .     .    .     sans  hcence  de  Messieurs.' 


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4%  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

scholar  in  the  universities  of  England.'  If  rhenish  florins 
are  meant,  this  rate  would  be  about  £q.o  sterling  per 
annum,  of  that  day^.  Wotton  had  no  attendant  with  him, 
and  was  in  other  respects  very  economical.  Indeed  he 
had  need  to  be  so,  if  his  whole  fortune  was  the  rent 
charge  of  loo  marks,  which  had  been  left  him  by  his 
father.  Be  this  as  it  may,  from  failure  of  remittances, 
he  was  not  able  to  pay  his  bill  when  he  wanted  to  leave. 
The  sum  of  33  gold  crowns  would  have  been  a  serious 
loss  to  Casaubon.  But  this  was  not  the  worst.  Wotton 
had  prevailed  on  Casaubon  to  become  surety  for  a  much 
larger  sum,  which  he  had  borrowed  from  a  banker,  124 
gold  crowns.  And  another  creditor  of  Wotton's,  who 
had  lent  him  a  further  sum  of  106  crowns,  being  himself 
about  to  leave  Geneva,  came  upon  Casaubon  to  repay 
him.  Even  the  very  horse,  on  which  he  had  ridden 
away,  Wotton  had  taken  on  credit— Casaubon's  credit 
— and  the  dealer  might  come  any  day  to  Casaubon  to  be 
paid.  All  was  to  be  settled  by  remittances  from  Frank- 
fort. The  autumn  fair  came  on,  the  merchants  returned 
from  Frankfort,  and  there  was  not  only  no  cash,  but  not 
even  a  line  from  Wotton.  Casaubon  was  in  the  depths 
of  despair.  He  could  do  nothing  and  think  of  nothing 
but  his  loss.  Two  hundred  and  sixty-three  crowns, 
besides  the  horse !  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  raise 
the  sum.  He  wrote  to  Wotton  in  England,  to  Thomson, 
to  Scaliger  to  interest  himself  in  his  behalf  with  the 
French  ambassador  at  the  Hague.  It  was  Christmas 
before  Wotton  paid.  But  he  did  so  at  last  in  full. 
Though  we  may  acquit  Wotton  of  dishonesty,  we  must 
condemn  him  for  culpable  neglect. 

Poor  as  the  provision  made  for  Casaubon  by  the  city 
was,  it  was  not  compensated  by  leisure.     Casaubon,  in 

'  From  Grynaeus'  epistles  (Norimb.  1720)  we  learn  that  the  usual  tariff  at 
Bale,  at  this  period,  in  a  professor's  house,  was  26  to  30  batzen  per  week.  A 
rhenish  florin  contained  21  batzen. 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1595.  43 

these  years,  complains  of  poverty,  he  complains  much 
more  of  want  of  time.  This  complaint  may  seem  incon- 
sistent with  the  fact,  that  his  statute  only  bound  him  to 
eight  hours  a  week  of  lecture.  But  he  had  now  added 
latin  to  his  greek  lecturing,  and  for  a  time  supplied  the 
place  of  the  hebrew  lecturer^.  And  it  is  probable  that 
he  was  driven  by  necessity  to  give  private  instruction, 
or  at  least  that  he  did  so  to  the  young  men  who  lodged 
in  his  house,  or  who  came  to  Geneva,  as  many  now  began 
to  do,  with  special  recommendation  to  him.  And  the 
demand  on  his  time^  occasioned  by  lectures  must  not  be 
measured  by  the  hours  of  delivery,  but  by  those  of  pre- 
paration. 

We  have  the  means  in  our  hands  of  measuring,  with 
some  exactness,  what  the  level  of  the  greek  and  latin 
classes  at  Geneva,  in  these  years,  was.  Three,  at  least, 
of  Casaubon's  published  commentaries  are,  in  substance, 
reproductions  of  his  courses  dictated  to  his  class  at 
Geneva.  Of  these,  the  Notes  on  Persius  are  of  uncer- 
tain date ;  those  on  Theophrastus  are  not  later  than 
1590 ;  those  on  the  second  book  of  Suetonius  are  of  1592. 
As  the  Notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius  give  us  the  measure 
of  Casaubon's  own  acquirement  set.  25,  so  these  three 
commentaries  enable  us  to  form  a  fair  notion  of  what  was 
the  character  of  the  instruction  expected,  and  given,  in 
the  academy  of  Geneva  in  the  closing  years  of  the  i6th 
century  ^  Not  that  the  printed  commentary  is  the  lecture 
as  delivered.  Casaubon's  lectures  were  not  written  out, 
they  were  extempore.     But  they  were  from  the  notes  he 

1  Ep.  879 :  '  Vixi  annos  14  Genevse,  professor  primo  Grascarum  literarum, 
deinde  etiam  Latinarum,  aliquando  etiam  Hebraearum.'  The  '  Latin '  professor- 
ship is  that  which  is  called  in  the  order  in  council,  Geneva  mss,  Registre  du  pet. 
cons.  22  nov.  1585,  f".  160,  '  Ung  professeur  en  eloquence  pour  lire  I'histoire.' 
^  Ep.  972  :  '  Docendi  munere  laboriosissimo  fungor  assidue.' 
^  Schultze,  Epp.  inedd.  p.  14 :  '  Olim  cum  Genevse  essera  et  frequenti  audi- 
torio  poetam  ilium  publice  exponerem,  id  serio  agebam,  ut  etiam  rudiorum 
rationem  haberem.  Hinc  ilia  KemoKo'^iiimTa,  quae  doctos  offendere  non  debent, 
quia  illis  scripta  non  sunt.' 


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44  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

took  into  the  class-room.  These  notes  were  chiefly  refer- 
ences to  the  relevant  passages  in  other  books.  The  same 
nucleus  of  memoranda  received  a  different  development, 
when  written  out  in  the  shape  of  a  commentary  for 
readers,  and  when  addressed  orally  to  a  class  of  pupils. 
But  the  substance  and  character  of  the  illustration  re- 
mained the  same.  Nor  is  it  difficult  in  the  commentary, 
e.g.  on  Theophrastus,  to  pick  out  passages,  the  tone  of 
which  stamps  them  as  portions  of  a  lecture.  A  lecturer 
will  not  go  where  his  class  cannot  follow.  That  Casaubon 
did  not,  we  know  from  the  success  and  popularity  of  his 
teaching.  But  we  might  infer  it  also  from  the  different 
character  of  some  'Notes  on  Aristophanes''-  which  are 
the  substance  of  a  course  delivered  at  Paris  in  1601.  In 
that  year  Casaubon  interpreted  '  The  Knights'  to  a  circle 
of  friends  in  his  own  house^.  Here  we  find  the  lecturer 
judiciously  adapting  himself  to  an  audience  composed  of 
older  persons,  but  manifestly  less  advanced  in  knowledge 
of  the  language  than  the  younger  class,  with  whom  he 
had  read  Theophrastus  ten  years  before  at  Geneva^. 
Casaubon  had  been  transferred,  almost  without  interval, 
from  the  bench  of  the  learner  to  the  chair  of  the  teacher. 
What  he  had  learned  under  Portus,  he  was  to  teach  to 
others.  We  cannot  suppose  that  he  raised,  at  one  stroke, 
the  standard  of  the  whole  school,  or  changed  its  character. 
What  he  did,  Portus  must  have  been  doing,  though  per- 
haps not  so  thoroughly,  before  him. 

Weighing  all  these  facts,  we  can  arrive  at  a  tolerably 
near  estimate  of  the  range  and  compass  of  classical  in- 
struction in  the  academy  of  Geneva.  We  find  a  width  of 
reading  possessed  by  the  teacher,  and  a  level  of  philo- 
logical curiosity  assumed  in  the  learner,  which  it  would 

'  First  printed  by  L.  KUster  in  his  Aristophanes,  Amstel.  1710. 

°  Ephem.  p.  384. 

'  Kuster  accordingly  finds  the  Notes  'non  aeque  elaboratae  ac  aha,  quse 
habemus,  eruditissimi  illius  viri  opera,  prselectiones  enim  potius  fuisse  videntur 
in  tironum  usum  conscriptse.' 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  45 

not  be  easy  to  find  surpassed  in  the  most  celebrated 
lecture-rooms  of  our  time.  We  may  safely  affirm,  that 
such  teaching  could  neither  have  been  given  nor  appre- 
ciated without  the  most  unremitting  effort  on  the  part 
both  of  teacher  and  taught.  Of  himself  the  Professor  has 
told  us,  that  it  taxed  all  his  energies  to  master  the  Roman 
history  of  the  first  century,  a.  d.,  in  a  way  which  was 
adequate  to  the  demands  of  his  class  ^  The  time  de- 
manded of  the  Professor,  eight  hours  per  week,  is  not 
heavy;  but  his  every  hour  was  required  to  obtain  the 
mastery  of  the  period,  and  the  survey  of  the  whole  of  the 
authorities,  without  which  he  was  not  content  to  pro- 
nounce an  opinion  on  a  single  passage.  He  does  not 
content  himself  with  the  bare  explanation  of  the  text  of 
his  author.  He  would  grapple  with  all  the  difficulties 
which  emerge,  not  only  in  the  text,  but  in  the  matter. 
And  these  difficulties  he  will  meet,  not  by  retailing  solu- 
tions ready  made  by  previous  commentators;  he  offers 
one  founded  on  his  own  reading  and  comparison  of 
passages.  And  this  comparison  is  not  one  instituted  for 
the  particular  occasion  by  inspection  of  an  isolated  text 
or  paragraph.  The  whole  of  each  author  is  read  and 
possessed,  and  it  is  with  this  complete  feeling,  that  the 
citation  required  is  brought  up  as  illustration.  The  sense 
of  thoroughness,  thus  conveyed  by  a  lecturer's  method, 
renders  a  wrong  solution  more  valuable  than  a  right 
one  arrived  at  by  superficial  reading,  or  taken  upon  the 
authority  of  another  expositor. 

Besides  the  books  already  named,  we  find  him  taking 
as  his  text-book,  Arrianus'  Diatribae,  and  Polybius.  Poly- 
bius  was  chosen  with  a  view  to  catch  the  interest  of 
the  military  men.  The  lecturer  went  into  the  constitution 
of  the  Roman  army,  and  that  portion  of  the  text  [De  militia 

'  Ded.  in  Sueton. :  '  In  quo  negotio  ut  ea  fide  versarer,  quam  et  muneris  raei 
ratio  postulabat,  et  alacritas  honestissimorum  adolescentium  qui  mihi  assiduam 
operam  navabant    .     ,     .' 


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46  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Romano)  was  printed  separately  in  Greek  and  Latin  by 
Chouet  in  1596.  The  Arrianus,  as  afterwards  Persius, 
was  selected  with  a  view  to  edification.  The  printed 
commentaries  on  Persius  retain  traces  of  this  moral  pur- 
pose which  had  inspired  the  lecturer.  It  was  a  sentiment 
which  dominated  the  academy,  nay,  the  state.  It  was 
its  moral  intensity  more  than  its  pure  orthodoxy,  which 
gave  Geneva  the  lead  of  the  calvinistic  churches,  and 
caused  its  school  to  be  sought  from  all  parts.  A  few 
years  after  Casaubon  left,  Valentin  Andreas  was  struck 
with  the  contrast  between  the  religious  earnestness  of 
Geneva,  and  the  dogmatic  scholasticism  of  German  luther- 
anism.  Vice  and  luxury  were  here  criminal  offences  ^. 
Casaubon's  lectures  are  coloured,  without  being  cor- 
rupted, by  the  same  tone.  He  never  shirks  difficulties 
under  the  cover  of  moral  reflection.  But  he  aims  to 
vivify  classical  literature,  and  to  read  a  stoical  book  in 
the  spirit  in  which  it  was  written.  It  becomes  not  a 
mere  grammatical  amusement,  but  an  education  of  charac- 
ter for  the  young,  an  instruction  in  life  and  manners  for 
persons  of  all  ages.  The  affinity  which  this  temper  felt 
for  stoical  literature — for  Arrianus,  or  Persius — is  easily 
understood.  It  is  characteristic  of  Beza,  the  able  nego- 
tiator and  man  of  affairs,  that  he  should  have  recom- 
mended Cicero's  letters  to  Atticus  as  a  text-book.  And 
when  Casaubon  wished  to  gratify  his  own  antiquarian 
taste  by  reading  on  Tertullianus  De  Pallio,  the  'coetus 
pastorum'  vetoed  the  book,  as  unedifying.  Though  his 
preference  was  for  prose,  the  tragic  poets  were  not  omitted, 
and  Euripides  was  often  in  hand. 

These  are  all  the  authors  mentioned  by  name  as  having 
been  taken  for  text-books  by  Casaubon.  But  in  the 
course  of  fourteen  years'  professorship  many  others  must 
have   had  their  turn.     He  can  hardly  have  altogether 

'  J.  v.  Andreas,  Vita  ab  ipso  conscripta,  p.  24. 

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II.]  GENEVA.      1578-1596.  47 

ignored  the  requirements  of  his  statute,  which  names 
'Aristotle,  Plato,  or  Plutarch'  expressly  as  books  for 
the  greek  reader.  Yet  two  inferences  from  this  fragmen- 
tary information  seem  to  be  warranted.  First,  that  Casau- 
bon  dwelt  more  fondly  on  the  historical,  antiquarian, 
and  learned  literature  of  Greece,  than  on  the  poets  and 
philosophers  of  the  best  period.  Secondly,  that  there 
did  not  exist  in  the  academy  of  Geneva  anything  like 
a  prescribed  curriculum  of  classical  study,  through  which 
each  student  must  necessarily  pass.  Indeed  if  this  fixed 
'  cursus '  was  not  laid  down  in  theology,  as  it  was  not, 
it  was  much  less  likely  that  the  literae  humaniores  should 
have  been  methodised.  The  German  universities  even 
seem,  at  this  period,  to  have  left  their  professors  very 
much  to  their  own  choice  of  subject,  in  the  philosophical 
faculty.  Much  more  was  this  the  case  at  Geneva,  where 
edification  and  piety  were  the  first  or  sole  concern. 
Moral  and  religious  discipline  was  severe,  and  rigidly 
enforced ;  intellectual  discipline  had  not  come  into  exist- 
ence. 

This  latitude  of  choice,  both  as  to  text-book  and  as 
to  treatment,  should  have  mitigated  to  Casaubon  the  griev- 
ance of  lecturing.  For  he  could  thus  read  before  his 
class  the  book  on  which  he  was  employed  himself. 
Yet  there  were  bounds  to  this  freedom.  First,  it  was 
limited  by  the  approbation  of  the  'coetus  pastorum.' 
The  ministers  exercised  a  strict  surveillance  over  the 
teaching,  not  only  in  the  school,  but  in  the  academy. 
When  Casaubon  proposed  to  lecture  on  Tertullianus 
De  Pallio,  it  was  vetoed.  A  professor  could  not  even 
publish  without  first  submitting  his  book  to  their  censor- 
ship.    For^  leave  to  print  his  innocent  Notes  on  Diogenes 

1  Geneva  mss.  12  f6vr.  1583,  f".  25  ':  '  M^  Isaac  Casaubon,  professeur,  qui  a 
pr^sentd  requeste  tendant  a  luy  permettre  d'imprimer  deux  livres  qu'il  a  com- 
poses, I'ung  intitule  NotEe  in  Laertium,  le  second  Observationum  liber,  qui  ont 
este  vus  par  M'.  de  Bfeze  et  M.  Rotan,  a  est6  arrests  qu'on  luy  ouctroie  sa 


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48  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Laertius,  Casaubon  was  compelled  to  get  a  special  permit 
from  the  council. 

The  lecturer  was  also  obliged  to  have  some  regard 
to  the  students.  There  were,  it  is  true,  no  examinations, 
no  curriculum,  nor  even  any  established  authors  imposed 
by  opinion.  But  then  the  greek  class  in  the  academy 
was  not  compulsory,  and  it  was  necessary  to  carry  your 
hearers  with  you.  The  kind  of  books  on  which  Casaubon 
would  have  willingly  worked  himself  were  impossible. 
Theocritus  would  have  been  vetoed  by  the  censors ; 
Athenseus  would  have  been  beyond  the  reach  of  the  class. 

Thus  the  work  of  editing  and  the  work  of  lecturing 
were  incompatible.  In  the  conflict  between  the  two, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  former  would  ultimately 
carry  the  day.  Casaubon  does  not  share  the  disgust 
which  Scaliger  expressed  for  professorial  teaching^.  Even 
in  1596  he  declares  himself^  '  ready  to  exert  all  his  power 
to  be  of  use  to  his  auditors,'  but  his  interest  now  centres 
elsewhere.  His  ambition  is  fired.  He  has  extended  his 
horizon  beyond  the  class-room  to  the  republic  of  letters. 
He  has  found  that  he  can  write,  on  classical  antiquity, 
what  attracts  the  attention  of  the  learned ;  what  Scaliger 
does  not  disdain.  He  is  now  wild  with  eagerness  to 
prefix  his  name  to  some  edition  of  a  capital  work^.  What 
he  has  hitherto  done  is  mere  prelude,  juvenile  production, 
hurried  scribblement.    What  he  has  written,  on  Diogenes 

requeste.'  Why  Casaubon  was  required  to  obtain  an  order  for  publication  on 
this  occasion,  I  am  unable  to  say.  It  does  not  appear  that  other  Genevan 
authors  did  so,  nor  did  Casaubon  do  so  for  his  later  publications.  The  '  Obser- 
vationum  liber,'  which  is  said  to  have  been  submitted  to  the  two  ministers,  was 
never  published,  nor  does  any  such  ms.  appear  among  the  'Adversaria.'  Casaubon, 
ep-  433>  tells  Bongars  that  he  had  kept  back  'librum  unum  observationum  nos- 
trarum  in  sacros  et  ecclesiasticos  scriptores.' 

1  Scaligerana  i".  p.  18 :  '  Si  vitam  Josepho  Scahgero  Deus  longiorem  conces- 
serit,  nuUus  auctor  futurus  est,  primaries  dico,  quem  non  emendaturus  sit ;  ad  id 
enim  aptus  natus  est,  non  a  caqueter  en  chaire  et  pedanter.'  The  words,  thus 
reported  by  Vertunien,  are  doubtless  those  which  Scaliger  himself  used. 

^  Ep.  50  :  '  Vires  ingenii  contendere.' 

'  Ep.  74  :  •  Insanus  quidam  Eestus  rei  literarise  juvandas.' 


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II.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  49 

Laertius  and  Theocritus,  is  '^of  that  sort  that  he  will  not 
acknowledge  it  for  his.'  The  notes  on  the  Gospels  and 
Acts  'were  extorted  from  him  by  the  publishers.'  He 
is  more  than  usually  emphatic  in  depreciating  their  value, 
and  in  promising  what  he  '  will  do  in  the  same  field  here- 
after, if  God  shall  give  him  leisure'  (Notse  in  N.  T.  fin.). 
The  Strabo  is  '^no  legitimate  offspring  of  his,  a  mere 
abortion.'  He  will  show  what  he  can  do  by  attacking  the 
desperate  chaos  of  the  great  storehouse  of  classical  wit 
and  learning — Athenaeus. 

This  literary  ardour  was,  however,  liable  to  be  checked 
by  a  controlling  religious  sentiment,  which  was  continually 
pushing  Casaubon  in  the  direction  of  theological  reading. 
This  divine  instinct  was  ever  suggesting  the  futility  of 
worldly  knowledge,  and  the  superior  value  of  religious 
studies.  This  impression  may  be  traced  to  the  early 
years  of  the  son  of  the  Huguenot  pastor  who  had  to  fly 
to  the  hills  in  the  Reign  of  Terror.  When  in  1583  Isaac 
presented  his  literary  first-born,  the  Observations  on 
Diogenes  Laertius,  to  his  father,  and  laid  before  him  the 
schemes  of  publication  with  which  at  twenty-four  his 
brain  was  teeming,  the  good  man  smiled,  commended 
his  zeal  for  learning,  but  said,  'he  had  rather  have  a 
single  observation  on  the  sacred  volume  than  all  the  fine 
things  he  was  concocting  ^.'  And  this  was  not  altogether 
the  contempt  of  ignorance,  the  dictum  of  a  man  who 
prizes  the  Bible,  because  he  knows  no  other  book.  The 
man  who  had  emphatically  recommended  Strabo  to  his 
son*  as  useful  reading  could  not  have  been  a  mere 
ignorant  zealot. 

The  sentiment  thus  implanted  in  early  life  was  nour- 
ished by  the  atmosphere  of  Geneva.  The  pupil  and 
admirer  of  Beza,  who  thought  life  scarce  tolerable  away 
from  Beza's  side^,  was  not  likely  to  be  allowed  to  regard 

'  Ep.  4.  '  Ep.  II.  '  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  98.  *  See  p.  5. 

'  Ep.  114  :  '  Vivendi  omnes  causas  mihi  periisse  puto.' 

E 

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50  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

classical  learning  as  a  worthy  life-pursuit.     Beyond  again 
these  influences  of  early  impression   and   later  environ- 
ment, religious  awe  was  constitutional  in  Casaubon,  and 
connected  with  his  depressed  nervous  organism.     Hence 
it  was  most  potent  in   his  seasons  of  illness.     Such  an 
impulse  came  over  him  when,  aet.  28,  prostrated  by  the 
tension  of  overwork,  he  abandoned  the  study  of  the  law 
and  betook  himself  to  theology.     Law  was  left  for  ever; 
but  theology  soon  gave  place  to  Strabo.     Ten  years  later, 
aet.  38,  he  writes  to  Sibrand  Lubbert,  professor  of  theo- 
logy at   Franequer,   '  ^  You   invite   me   to  take  up   some 
portion  of  the  history  of  the'  primitive  church.     How 
willingly  would  I,  if  I  might !     Believe  me  that  if  I  have 
hitherto  lived  for  studies  of  another  kind,  it   has   been 
chance,  not  choice,  that  has  determined  it  so.     Yet  I  have 
never   so  far  forgotten   myself  as   to  form   a   deliberate 
resolve  of  resigning  myself  to  literature.     Circumstances 
forced  me  in  early  youth  into  this  line  of  reading,  and  I 
have  been  kept  dreaming  on  the  rocks  of  the  Sirens  ever 
since.     So  the  best  part  of  my  life  has  been  passed  in 
studies  very  different  from  what  I  should  have  chosen  for 
myself.'     This  is  in  September  1596,  and  he  immediately 
plunges  into  his  greatest  classical  effort — the  edition  of 
Athenaeus.    While    he  is  working  at  Athenaeus,  he  is 
wishing,  all  the  while,  that  he  was  reading  the  Fathers. 
'^Oh!  when  will  the  day  come,'  sighs  the  diary  of  March 
13,  1598,  'when  it  shall  be  God's  will  that  I  shall  have 
done  with  this  editing,  and  be  free  to  give  myself  to  better 
studies.'     In  1595  he  writes  to  Bongars^  'That  learning 
which  was,  in  former  days,  my  highest  ambition,  has  now 
small  charms  for  me;    amid  all  this  public  misery  one's 
mind  requires  somewhat  on  which  it  can  stay  and  repose 

'  Ep.  77.  2  Ephem.  p.  77. 

Ep.  42 :  '  Ilia  quam  tantopere  olim  ambiimus  ■noKvuliSfm  .  .  .  nunc 
minus  grata  ;  qu^rit  enim  animus,  in  his  publicis  miseriis  aliud  nescio  quid,  in 
quo  acquiescat.' 


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1I-]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  51 

itself.'  From  the  first  there  were  in  Casaubon  two  men, 
the  theologian  and  the  scholar.  He  never  rose  to  the 
point  of  union,  where  theology  falls  into  its  place,  as  a 
branch  of  learning.  He  was  continually  oscillating  be- 
tween the  two,  as  rival,  and  incompatible,  claimants.  The 
age,  with  its  predominant  theological  interests,  was  too 
much  for  him.  After  seeming  for  a  while  to  emancipate 
his  mind,  and  give  it  undivided  to  classical  research,  we 
shall  see  him,  in  his  later  years,  falling  back  again  into 
the  attitude  of  the  vulgar  theological  polemic. 

If  we  recall  the  situation  of  Geneva  during  the  fourteen 
years  of  Casaubon's  professorate,  we  shall  see,  that  this 
highly  charged  devotional  atmosphere  was  nourished,  if 
not  created,  by  the  pressure  of  external  peril.  Exposed 
to  the  incessant  assaults  of  a  powerful  neighbour,  the  city 
was  almost  perpetually  in  a  state  of  siege,  and  all  its 
able-bodied  citizens  were  under  arms.  Its  only  hope  of 
support  was  from  the  Swiss  confederation ;  and  the  Pro- 
testant cantons,  secure  themselves,  seem  to  have  looked 
upon  the  struggles  of  Geneva  with  apathy.  Grynaeus 
writes  calmly  to  a  friend  (October  26,  1586),  '^Dom.  Beza 
makes  many  complaints  of  the  public  miseries  and  straits 
of  the  city  of  Geneva.'  The  moral  result  on  a  generation, 
growing  up  under  such  training,  might  well  have  been 
military  barbarism.  But  another  counteracting  influence 
came  into  play.  The  aggression  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
was  a  war,  not  of  ambition  and  aggrandisement,  but  of 
religious  passion.  To  root  out  heresy  was  the  paramount 
motive.  The  fury  of  the  catholic  exterminator  encoun- 
tered an  equal  religious  exaltation  in  the  calvinistic  resist- 
ance. '  If  the  Lord  had  not  been  on  our  side '  was  the 
heartfelt  ejaculation  of  the  Genevan  citizen  as  he  wit- 
nessed the  repeated  and  miraculous  escapes  of  his 
republic  from  treacherous  surprise,  or  the  constant 
pressure    of    superior    force.      '^Whatever    has    been 

1  Gryn.  Epp.  ep.  47.  "  Ep;  5. 

E  2 

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52,  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

achieved  against  the  enemy,'  Casaubon  writes  in  1590, 
'  has  been  done  by  God's  own  hand,  which  we  have 
seen,  I  may  say,  with  our  eyes.'  Piety  became  not  a 
personal  sentiment,  but  a  pubhc  creed.  The  moral  force 
thus  inspired  into  that  generation — Beza's  generation — 
was  more  favourable  to  learning,  than  the  external 
security  of  the  half-century  which  followed  1601.  Learn- 
ing was  not  encouraged  by  the  administration  as  such, 
but  it  was  not  interfered  with.  Under  the  literal  (calvin- 
istic)  orthodoxy  of  the  17th  century  it  became  impossible 
for  it  to  exist.  But  as  long  as  Beza  lived,  it  received 
toleration,  if  not  respect.  '  ^  You  may  well  be  surprised, 
but  so  it  is,'  says  Casaubon,  '  I  have  enjoyed,  through  all, 
more  leisure  than  ever  I  had,  and  I  have  divided  my  time 
between  the  recension  of  the  text  of  Aristotle,  and  looking 
on  at  the  wonders  the  Lord  hath  wrought  for  us.'  The 
enthusiasm  of  private  study  alternates  with  fits  of  dejec- 
tion when  the  student  looks  on  the  world  without.  '  ^  You 
have  been  rightly  informed,'  he  tells  Joachim  Camerarius, 
1594 ;  '  I  am  deep  in  Athenaeus,  and  I  hope  my  labour  on 
the  edition  will  not  be  altogether  in  vain.  But  one's  in- 
dustry is  sadly  damped  by  the  reflection  how  greek  is 
now  neglected  and  despised.  Looking  to  posterity,  or 
the  next  generation,  what  motive  has  one  for  devotion  to 
study?' 

If  it  is  the  general  law  of  nature  that  genius  is  evoked 
and  nourished  by  its  environment,  Casaubon  is  a  singular 
exception.  Neither  in  Geneva,  nor  among  his  wider  circle 
of  correspondents,  if  we  except  Scaliger,  whom  he  only 
came  to  know  in  1594,  had  he  rivalry,  example,  or  encour- 
agement. In  Geneva  nothing  that  could  be  called  literary 
interest  existed.  A  poor  and  starved  seminary  for  pious 
training ;  a  trading  printing  press  for  the  sale  of  school- 
books,  and  sermons;  a  theology  not  formal,  but  inter- 
fused through  every  day's  life  and  thinking.    An  armed 

>  Ep.  5.  1590.  s  Ep.  996. 

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11.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596,  53 

enemy  crouched  at  their  gates,  watching  his  opportunity 
for  the  death-spring;  each  day  bringing  news  of  some 
fresh  outrage  on  their  corehgionists,  in  the  countries 
where  the  cathohc  reaction  was  in  its  full  tide.  On  this 
ungenial  soil,  Casaubon  developed  out  of  his  own  instincts 
the  true  idea  of  classical  learning.  Not  an  idea  of  scien- 
tific philology  as  we  conceive  it,  but  that  of  a  complete 
mastery  of  the  ancient  world  by  exhaustive  reading;  a 
reconstruction  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity  out  of  the 
extant  remains  of  the  literature.  Instead  of  wondering 
that  he  allowed  this  ideal  to  be  obscured  to  him  by  the 
clouds  of  party  polemics,  what  is  surprising  is  that  he 
should  ever  have  been  able,  an  untaught  and  unfriended 
man,  struggling  himself  with  chill  penury,  to  rise  to  it. 

The  depreciation  of  his  own  performance,  which  was 
one  of  Casaubon's  mental  habits,  was  founded  on  the  dis- 
paragement of  secular  knowledge  in  comparison  of  piety, 
which  was  the  intellectual  atmosphere  he  had  to  breathe. 

But  it  was  further  connected  with  that  oppression  of 
mind,  which  the  infinity  of  knowledge  lays  upon  its 
votaries.  The  man  of  science  is  often  drawn  as  stand- 
ing on  a  proud  pinnacle,  from  which  he  surveys  his 
conquests,  and  sees  the  universe,  whose  secret  he  has 
wrested,  spread  at  his  feet.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  man 
of  learning.  He  may  joy  in  pursuit,  but  he  can  never 
exult  in  possession.  The  thought  'quantum  est  quod 
nescimus ' — Heinsius'  motto— keeps  him  not  only  humble, 
but  despondent.  Even  in  science,  some  of  the  greatest 
men  have  shared  the  sense  of  baffled  endeavour.  New- 
ton's pebbles  on  the  sea-shore  are  become  proverbial. 
La  Place's  dying  words  were,  '  I'homme  ne  poursuit  que 
des  chimeres.'  But  it  is  the  scholar  who  is,  more  than 
other  investigators,  subject  to  these  periods  of  darkness 
and  gloom.  The  hopelessness  of  the  task,  which  Casau- 
bon had  set  himself,  imparts  a  hurry  and  restlessness  to 
his  day. 


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54  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

The  constant  complaint  of  want  of  time  reiterated  by 
Casaubon  in  every  preface,  in  his  commentaries,  in  his 
letters — '  ^  I  am  so  busy  that  I  have  hardly  time  to  draw 
breath,'  are  not  the  mere  apology  for  imperfection,  hke 
the  '  in  haste '  often  added  at  the  bottom  of  a  bad  letter. 
They  are  indicative  of  a  settled  habit  of  mind.  Casaubon 
is  oppressed  not  by  hours  of  teaching,  but  by  his  own 
studies.  Research  is  infinite;  it  can  never  be  finished. 
The  speculative  philosopher,  who  has  exhausted  thought, 
may  sit  with  his  head  in  the  clouds,  and  feed  himself  on 
contemplation.  But  the  commentator  on  a  classical 
author  can  never  make  an  end.  He  is  never  sure  that 
the  very  passage  which  would  explain  his  difficulty  may 
not  have  escaped  him.  '  The  author  alludes,'  Casaubon 
notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius,  'to  a  practice  of  that  day, 
which  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  noticed  by  any 
other  author  or  annotatorl'  But  the  allusion  may  turn 
up.  If  he  had  but  a  little  more  time  to  read!  Casaubon 
is  always  ill  at  ease,  unless  he  is  acquiring,  and  acquisi- 
tion does  but  give  him  a  glimpse  of  the  untravelled  world 
beyond.  He  will  do  better  things  in  time, — with  more 
time — that  is  the  cry  of  these  years  of  the  Genevan  pro- 
fessorate. Bongars  ventured  to  expostulate  with  him  on 
the  shghtness  of  so  many  of  the  things  he  put  his  name 
to.  Casaubon  is  thankful  for  the  reproof,  and  promises 
in  future  '  ^  to  digest  with  thorough  care  and  diligence 
what  I  may  prepare  for  editing.'  But  he  is  not  cured. 
In  1605  we  hear :  '  *  I  am  so  distracted  with  engagements 
that  I  swear  to  you  that  what  I  print  goes  to  press  almost 
before  I  have  thought  it  out.' 

His  aim  is  always  far  ahead  of  his  achievement.  His 
repeated  engagement  that  he  will  some  day  do  better  is 
an  illusion.  But  it  is  not  the  illusion  of  presumption. 
He  grounds  his  confidence  not  on  his  own  ability,  but 

'  Ep.  14,  1594.  2  Note  in  Diog,  p.  66. 

=  Ep.  18.  1594.  1  Ep.  457. 


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II.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  55 

on  the  hope  of  leisure— that  leisure  which  is  always  pro- 
mised, but  never  comes  to  the  student.  He  knows  the 
limitation  of  his  own  talent.  He  tells  Scaliger,  '^The 
disposition  has  never  been  wanting,  but  I  have  lacked  all 
helps,  even  the  most  indispensable.  I  have  never  had 
time  of  my  own.  And  I  have  no  talent.  I  mean  natural 
gifts,  not  learning,  if  I  may  call  that  learning  which  is 
possessed  by  men  like  me.  Ambition  is  always  impelling 
me  to  greater  aims,  but  the  "frigidus  circum  praecordia 
sanguis  "  paralyses  me.  I  never  take  up  your  books,  or 
those  of  your  great  father,  but  I  lay  them  down  in  despair 
at  my  own  progress,  and  resolve  to  adopt  for  my  motto 

Hence  he  is  anxious  for  the  good  opinion  of  others ; 
but  only  for  that  of  those  who  are  able  to  judge.  All 
writing,  at  least  all  publication,  is  an  appeal  to  the  verdict 
of  the  competent.  When  Newton  wrote  (February  18, 
1670),  'You  have  my  leave  to  insert  the  solution  of  the 
annuity  problem  in  the  "  Philosophical  Transactions,"  so 
it  be  without  my  name  to  it ;  for  I  see  not  what  there  is 
desirable  in  public  esteem,  were  I  able  to  acquire  and 
maintain  it,'  it  is  not  '  morbid  temperament '  as  De 
Morgan  ^  would  call  it.  It  is  contempt  for  the  unfounded 
plaudits  of  the  uninstructed,  a  contempt  which  implies 
respect  for  the  appreciation  of  experts.  Towards  the 
close  of  his  Genevan  period,  Casaubon  is  ever  ready  to 
enlarge  his  circle  of  friends,  yet  not  by  making  pro- 
miscuous acquaintance,  but  by  cultivating  the  hkeminded, 
wherever  they  could  be  found.  Before  he  left  Geneva, 
and  before  the  publication  of  his  Athenaeus,  he  was  be- 
coming known,  not  only  by  name,  but  personally,  to  the 
reading  world.  The  greek  scholars  who  formed  a  select 
company  within  the  general  body  of  the  reading  public, 
had  now  their  attention  fixed  on  Casaubon  as  the  rising 
light,  from  which  illumination  was  to  be  looked  for.    They 

1  Ep.  17. 1594.  '  Budget  of  Paradoxes,  p.  456. 

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56  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

court  his  notice,  or  he  seeks  their  acquaintance,  by  letter. 
The  area  of  his  correspondence  extends  rapidly  each 
year.  By-and-by  his  letters  will  come  to  constitute  a  new 
demand  on  his  time.  In  April  1590,  he  undertakes  a 
journey  to  the  Frankfort  fair,  for  the  purpose  of  meeting 
Lipsius.  He  is  disappointed.  Lipsius  does  not  come ; 
Casaubon  is  obliged  to  be  content  with  writing  to  Lipsius 
from  Frankfort,  to  say  that  if  he  had  leisure,  he  would  go 
all  the  way  to  Belgium  to  make  his  acquaintance. 

Casaubon's  earlier  friends,  so  far  as  they  were  learned 
— we  should  say  literary,  all  literature  was  then  learned — 
were  among  his  colleagues  in  the  academy.  Among  these 
the  first  place  is  due  to  the  venerable  Beza.  To  the  aged 
Beza,  by  forty  years  his  senior,  Casaubon  looked  up  as  a 
son  to  a  parent.  Years  after  Beza's  death,  Casaubon 
writes  to  Prideaux  (April  7,  1613) :  '  ^  During  the  fourteen 
years  of  my  Genevan  professorship,  the  whole  company 
of  pastors  and  professors  at  Geneva  regarded  me,  as  they 
still  regard  me,  with  sincere  affection.  To  Beza,  above 
the  rest,  was  I  very  dear,  he  treating  me  as  his  son,  while 
I  respected  him  as  a  parent.  Were  I  boastingly  inclined, 
I  might  boast  of  having  been  for  so  many  years  Beza's 
colleague.  But  from  him  I  learnt  to  think  humbly  of 
myself,  and  if  I  have  been  able  to  do  aught  in  letters 
to  ascribe  all  the  glory  to  God.'  Beza's  time  and  thought 
had,  indeed,  for  many  years  been  absorbed  by  the  public 
affairs  of  the  reformed  churches  or  by  those  of  his  pas- 
toral office.  But  Beza  was  a  man  of  no  vulgar  learning. 
Though  he  had  long  relinquished  the  classics  himself,  he 
knew  the  value  of  greek.  Casaubon  preserv^ed  among  his 
papers  two  pages  of  conjectures  on  the  text  of  Plutarch, 
which  had  been  given  him  by  Beza,  'manus  suae  moni- 
mentum,'  as   an   autograph  2.      Beza's   own   attainments  ^ 

'  Ep.  879.  2  Adversaria,  torn.  ii. 

Though  we  must  not  adopt  the  exaggerating  assertion  of  Dieterici,  Antiq. 
Bibl.  prolegg  p.  i8,  that  Beza,  before  he  began  his  notes  on  the  N.  T.,  had  '  gone 
through  (evolverit)  all  the  Greek  authors,  sacred  and  profane.' 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  57 

were  considerable;  he  knew,  what  few  did,  how  far 
ScaHger's  went  beyond  those  of  any  other  Hving  man. 
On  Beza's  death,  Casaubon  writes  to  Scaliger  (November, 
1605),  '  I  may  tell  you  what  I  know,  that  in  him  you  have 
lost  one  of  the  few  who  know  how  rightly  to  esteem  you. 
I  was  seldom  with  him,  but  we  spoke  of  you,  and  I  do 
not  know  if  there  was  any  one  else  in  all  that  country, 
except  Beza,  who  thoroughly  understood  your  position 
in  the  repubhc  of  letters  \'  It  is  to  Casaubon  that  we 
owe  one  of  the  last  gHmpses  of  the  Genevan  reformer^. 
On  a  visit  to  Geneva  in  June  1603,  he  spent  a  day  in  the 
company  of  Beza,  then  aged  84,  who  entertained  him  at 
supper  in  the  evening.  Though  his  memory  for  the  facts 
of  the  day  was  gone,  so  that  he  could  not  remember  that 
Elizabeth  had  ceased  to  be  Queen  of  England,  yet  when 
the  talk  was  of  religion  or  theology,  he  spoke  with  all  his 
usual  verve,  and  was  ready  to  quote  the  words  of  the 
New  Testament,  either  in  latin  or  in  the  original. 

Of  all  Casaubon's  Genevan  friends— for  his  relation  to 
Beza  was  filial  rather  than  friendly — Lect  was  the  dearest 
and  most  intimate.  Jacques  Lect  was  law  professor  till 
poverty  obliged  the  council  to  cashier  him.  He  was  of 
Casaubon's  own  age,  and  no  mere  lawyer,  but  occupied 
himself  with  the  classics,  at  least  in  his  leisure  hours. 
Thus,  while  his  professorship  was  suspended,  he  pub- 
Hshed  an  edition  of  "Symmachus^.     In  1585  the  council 

»  Ep.  479. 

^  Ephem.  p.  493  :  '  Hoc  die  . . .  Beza  . . .  etiam  coena  nos  accepit,  me,  inquam, 
uxorem,  et  amicissimum  Pinaldum.  Deus  bone !  qui  vir !  quse  pietas  !  quae 
doctrina  !  o  vere  magnum  virum,'  etc.  Compare  with  L'Estoile,  Registre- 
journal,  25  aug.  1603  :  '  M.  Casaubon,  revenu  de  son  voyage  de  Dauphine,  ayant 
passe  par  Geneve,  me  conta,  qu'il  y  avoit  vu  M.  de  Beze,  age  pour  le  pr&ent  de 
85  ans,  et  qu'ayant  long-tems  communique  avec  lui,  il  n'y  avoit  apperfu  aucune 
diminution  d'esprit  et  de  memoire  pour  le  regard  de  sa  th6ologie  et  des  bonnes 
lettres;  mais  pour  les  affaires  du  monde,  qu'il  en  avoit  perdu  du  tout  la  me- 
moire et  la  connoissance ;  demandait  a  tout  le  monde  comme  se  portait  la  reine 
d'Angleterre ;  ne  lui  avoit  jamais  pu  persuader  d'ecrire  au  roi  d'Angleterre, 
disant  qu'il  6toit  mort  au  monde,  et  qu'il  lui  falloit  songer  de  mourir,  et  non 
d'ecrire  aux  rois  et  aux  reines.' 

^  In  1587.  See  Symm.  Epp.  ded. :  '  Per  id  temporis  dum  a  publica  juris  inter- 
pretatione  vaco.' 

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58  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

had  voted  him  a  gratuity  of  loo  florins,  '^vu  le  grand 
norabre  des  Uvres  qu'il  est  obHge  d'avoir.'  He  was  the 
only  man  in  Geneva  who  could  give  any  sympathy  to 
Casaubon  in  his  classical  studies.  When  Casaubon  re- 
moved to  Montpellier,  Lect  felt  himself  alone  in  his 
native  city^.  'Would  that  we  could  be  again  together, 
and  see  the  suns  down,  as  we  used ! '  writes  Casaubon 
to  him  8-  '  My  dearest  wish  is  either  to  have  you  here 
(Montpelher)  or  to  be  there  (Geneva)  with  you,  so  that 
we  may  spend  together  what  remains  of  life.  Without 
you  hfe  to  me  is  no  hfe.' 

With  Pacius,  the  other  law-professor,  Casaubon  was  on 
friendly  but  not  intimate  terms.  Pacius  was  a  reader  and 
editor  of  Aristotle,  and  Casaubon  had  been  his  pupil  in 
civil  law  and  philosophy  *.  Pacius  always  impressed  upon 
his  pupils  the  importance  of  classical  reading,  and  in  a 
letter  to  Casaubon  ^,  regrets  the  tendency  of  the  law  stu- 
dents to  neglect  the  classics.  '  I  wish,'  he  writes, '  you  had 
not  quitted  Montpellier  before  my  arrival.  I  flatter  myself 
you  never  would  have  done  so.  Our  professions,  though 
different,  are  allied,  and  aid  each  other.' 

Next  to  his  colleagues  came  his  pupils,  among  whom  a 
few  could  value  his  vast  acquirements,  and  none  could  be 
insensible  to  his  amiable  and  affectionate  disposition. 
Besides,  the  metropolis  of  Calvinism  drew  pilgrims, '  religi- 
onis  ergo,'  from  all  the  reformed  countries.  And  travellers, 
without  religious  objects,  already  began  to  take  Geneva  as 
a  desirable  halting-place  en  route  from   Italy.    Others, 

'  Registre  du  conseil,  ap.  GrSnus,  1585. 

^  Burney  mss.  365,  p.  52 :  '  Dolens  mcerensque  vixi  ego ;  postquam  sine  te, 
mi  Casaubone  ...  in  hac  solitudine.' 

'  Ep.  112 :  '  Utinam,  mi  Lecti,  iterum  utinam  vel  tu  hie  mecum,  vel  ego  istic 
tecum  vitee  quod  superest  degere,  unaque  soles,  ut  eramus  soliti,  condere 
aliquando  possimus.' 

*  [See  supra,  p.  9,  note  ''.j 

'  Burney  mss.  365,  p.  284 ;  '  Ego  humaniores  istas  literas,  in  quibus  excel- 
lis,  plurimi  facie,  doleo  autem  plerosque  studiosos  vel  aversari,  vel  negligere, 
qui  cum  juri  dent  operam,  quicquid  .  .  .  auctoritatis  habeo,  totum  in  id  in- 
sumpsissem  ut  tibi  essent  addicti,  quod  et  ipsis  et  reipublicae  utilissimum 
arbitror.' 

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II.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  59 

who  came  not  to  Geneva,  men  of  rank  and  influence,  began 
to  offer  him  their  friendship  or  their  patronage. 

Of  these  last  the  most  distinguished  were  de  Thou 
(Thuanus),  Bongars,  and  de  Fresne.  These  three  eminent 
men  served  France  in  important  diplomatic  missions,  and 
the  first  two  were  devoted  to  ancient  learning,  and  col- 
lectors of  greek  books. 

Jacques  Auguste  de  Thou  was  the  last,  and  most  illus- 
trious, example  of  those  public  men  who  were  formed  to 
affairs  upon  the  study  of  greek  and  roman  history.  Instead 
of  composing  his  memoirs,  hke  his  contemporaries,  in 
French,  he  chose  Latin,  not  because  it  was  the  language 
of  diplomacy,  but  because  it  alone  was  capable  of  classical 
handling.  Thrust  into  employment  against  his  will,  drag- 
ged perpetually  from  the  retirement  he  loved  to  undertake 
difficult  or  dangerous  negotiations,  his  heart  was  in  his 
library,  and  his  historical  work.  The  history  of  'Thuanus ' 
was  long  the  manual  of  statesmen  all  over  Europe.  It  is 
now  wholly  neglected,  even  in  the  country  of  its  author. 
The  cause  of  this  neglect  is  not  merely  the  language,  a 
difficulty  which  might  have  been  overcome  by  translation. 
It  is  because  it  is  too  minute.  Even  in  1733,  and  before 
the  revolution  of  '89  had  opened  a  new  and  absorbing 
page  of  history.  Lord  Carteret  pointed  to  the  extent  of  the 
work  as  fatal  to  its  popularity.  Containing  the  history  of 
only  sixty-four  years,  it  has  been  calculated  ^  that  de  Thou's 
folios  would  require  twelve  months,  at  four  hours  a  day, 
for  their  perusal.  The  world  has  now  too  long  a  history 
for  us  to  afford  time  to  know  it !  Thus  the  very  merit  of 
de  Thou's  '  Historia,'  its  completeness,  is  the  cause  of 
its  being  left  unread.  De  Thou  was  a  catholic,  but  a 
'politique,'  and  would  gladly  have  secured  Casaubon 
for  France,  without  attempting  to  convert  him. 

Jacques  Bongars  ^  was  a  calvinist,  and  a  calvinist  who 

'  Legendre,  i.  56. 

'  [On  Bongars  see  H.  Hagen,  '  Zur  Geschichte  der  Philologie,'  Berlin,  1879.] 


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6o  TSAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

would  not  allow  his  faith  to  be  tampered  with,  but  he  was 
of  the  moderate  school,  who,  under  the  cant  name  of 
'  moyenneurs,'  were  odious  to  the  zealots.  Casaubon  never 
mentions  Bongars,  but  he  couples  a  reference  to  his  '  piety' 
with  praise  of  his  love  for  letters.  Bongars  was  much 
relied  on  by  Henri  iv.  in  his  negotiations  with  South 
Germany  and  the  Swiss  cantons,  by  reason  of  the  thorough 
knowledge  he  possessed  of  their  affairs.  He  was  chiefly 
stationed  at  Strassburg,  which,  as  the  frontier  city  of  the 
empire,  and  at  the  same  time  a  free  town,  was  a  convenient 
post  of  observation  for  a  French  envoy.  Bongars  had 
made  Casaubon's  acquaintance  when  he  was  on  his  hasty 
visit  to  Frankfort  in  1590,  and  was  attracted  at  once  by 
his  enthusiasm  for  learning,  and  by  religious  sympathy. 
Bongars,  hke  de  Thou,  had  prepared  himself  for  a  diplo- 
matic career,  by  the  study  of  the  roman  law  and  of  the 
classics.  In  1581,  when  only  in  his  twenty-third  year,  he 
had  published  an  edition  of  Justin,  which  earned  for  him 
from  Niebuhr  the  praise  of  'distinguished  interpreter \' 
The  text,  which  Bongars  constructed  from  a  real  collation 
of  Mss,  however  faulty,  had  remained  untouched  at  the  time 
when  Niebuhr  spoke.  But  Bongars  studied  the  classics 
with  the  aims  of  a  man  of  the  world.  He  thus  indicates 
his  early  studies  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  ^ :  'It  is  not  the 
travelled  man  only  who  has  seen  life ;  he  may  be  said  to 
have  seen  it  too,  who  has  made  himself  acquainted  with 
the  revolutions  of  states,  the  geography  of  countries,  and 
the  manners  of  different  nations.  This  knowledge  we  may 
acquire  from  the  writings  of  historians.  So,  while  you 
linger  in  Italy  to  enjoy  the  conversation  of  its  learned  men, 
I  have  been  running  over  a  great  portion  of  the  greek  and 
latin  historians.'  His  letters,  as  giving  the  thread  of  the 
South-German  politics,  were,  though  written  by  a  protes- 
tant,  reprinted  by  permission  of  Louis  xiv,  for  the  use  of 
the  Dauphin,  but  with  characteristic  omissions. 

'  Vortrage  ub.  alte  Gesch.  p.  13.  ^  Bongars  to  Rose,  1581. 

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".]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  61 

Neither  the  pressure  of  public  employments,  nor  the 
corrupting  example  of  the  French  court,  extinguished 
Bongars'  love  for  learning  and  learned  books.  In  1604  he 
writes  to  a  friend  :  '  You  will  smile  at  my  folly,— I,  who 
though  a  courtier,  and  not  wealthy,  when  all  are  flocking 
about  the  king,  to  get  out  of  him  what  they  can,  turn  my 
back  on  it  all,  and  post  off  into  the  country  to  waste  my 
substance  in  buying  up  worm-eaten  books  (i.  e.  at  the  sale 
of  Cujas'  library).  My  court  is  paid  to  my  books ;  oh ! 
could  I  only  sit  down  in  quiet  to  enjoy  them,  I  would  not 
envy  either  the  Persians,  or  Sully,  their  wealth!'  The 
books  which  Bongars  thus  loved  were  nowhere  collected 
together,  but  were  at  his  death  found  dispersed,  like  the 
library  of  Richard  Heber,  in  several  places.  As  he  was 
liberal  in  lending  them,  many  never  returned  to  him  at  all. 
So  generous  was  he,  to  Casaubon  in  particular,  that 
Casaubon  seems  to  have  ceased  to  distinguish  between 
those  books  which  were  given,  and  those  which  were  only 
lent  him.  The  British  Museum  now  possesses  more  than 
one  of  Bongars'  greek  mss.,  which  passed  to  it  along  with 
the  other  books  of  Casaubon  which  have  found  their 
resting-place  there. 

Philip  Canaye,  the  sieur  de  Fresne,  had  also  been  bred 
up  on  the  civil  law  and  classical  books.  He  had  trans- 
lated, into  French,  extracts  from  Aristotle's  Organon 
(Paris,  1589),  a  translation  made,  perhaps  with  Casaubon's 
aid,  at  Lausanne,  where  he  resided  as  representative  of 
the  king  of  France.  After  being  employed  in  various 
negotiations  by  Henri  iv,  among  others  one  in  England 
(1590),  he  was  named  president  of  the  '  chambre  mipartie ' 
in  the  Parlement  of  Languedoc,  which  sate  at  Castres. 
At  the  conference  of  Fontainebleau  (1600)  he  was  con- 
vinced by  the  arguments  of  Du  Perron,  or  rather  quali- 
fied himself  for  the  Venetian  embassy,  by  declaring  himself 
a  catholic. 

These  three   personages,  de  Thou,  Bongars,  and  de 


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6a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Fresne,  were,  along  with  Pierre  PithoUj  at  this  period, 
Casaubon's  most  influential  friends  and  well-wishers  on 
the  French  side.  They  made  it  their  common  object  to 
secure  him  for  France.  And  it  was  through  de  Fresne's 
influence  that  his  removal  to  Montpellier  was  brought 
about.  Before  we  come  to  this  event  in  his  life  we  may 
finish  the  survey  of  his  circle  of  friends. 

We  have  said  that  some  of  the  learned,  or  lovers  of 
learning,  sought  Casaubon's  acquaintance  by  writing  to 
him  directly,  or  by  sending  him  a  polite  message  through 
a  common  friend.  The  acquaintance  of  others  Casaubon 
challenged,  by  writing  to  them  to  propose  friendship. 
This  was  not  always  a  safe  proceeding.  Casaubon  had,  in 
this  way,  solicited  Leunclavius  in  a  letter  charged  to  the 
muzzle  with  gratifying  compliments.  He  ascertained  that 
the  letter  reached  Leunclavius,  and  his  irritation  at  get- 
ting no  response  sharpened  the  language  of  some  (other- 
wise just)  censure  of  Leunclavius'  Dio  Cassius  (1592),  as 
Casaubon  himself  confesses,  not  without  some  remorse  ^. 

He  was  more  successful  in  a  quarter  of  much  more 
consequence.  Casaubon  must  naturally  have  wished  for 
a  word  of  approbation  or  encouragement  from  the  dictator 
of  letters.  But  none  came.  Scaliger^  had  been,  1593, 
settled  some  months  at  Leyden,  had  bidden  farewefl  to 
France,  and  seemed  thus  to  be  removed  to  a  distance, 
from  which  Casaubon  could  hardly  hope  to  be  visible  to 
his  eye.  After  much  hesitation  Casaubon  plucked  up 
courage  to  send  a  greeting  to  Scahger,  by  Richard 
Thomson,  the  young  m.a.  of  Clare  hall,  who  was  return- 
ing to  England,  via   Leyden.     Having  gone  so  far,  he 

'  Ep.  994. 

"  The  first  mention  of  Casaubon  by  Scaliger  is  in  a  letter  dated  Nov.  i6, 
1588  (Larroque,  p.  270) :  '  Je  n'ay  rien  veu  de  ce  garcon  dont  m'escrivds 
nommg  Casaubonus,  sauf  q'un  jeune  homme  venant  de  ce  quartier  la  me  dit 
dernierement  qu'il  estoit  professeur  au  dit  lieu.'  For  Scaliger's  commendation 
of  Casaubon,  see  Larroque,  p.  302,  note.  [The  reference  is  to  Tamizey  de 
Larroque's  '  Lettres  In^dites  de  J.  J.  Scaliger,'  Apen  and  Paris,  1879.] 

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II.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  63 

went  a  step  further,  and  followed  up  his  message  by  a 
letter,  in  which  he  introduced  himself  in  terms,  which 
were  certainly  humble,  but  not  more  so  than  became 
their  respective  age  and  position.  To  the  letter  came  no 
answer.  Casaubon  began  to  feel  the  awkwardness  of  a 
man  who  has  made  unacceptable  advances,  when  Thom- 
son, who  was  making  some  stay  at  Leyden,  wrote  to 
inform  him  that  his  message  had  been  graciously 
accepted,  and  that  the  archcritic  had  uttered  an  emphatic 
commendation  of  Casaubon.  The  Theophrastus  had  just 
reached  Leyden,  and  Scaliger,  who  may  not  have  been 
greatly  struck  with  such  of  Casaubon's  books  as  he  had 
previously  seen,  had  instantly  recognised  the  merits  of  this 
commentary,  replete  with  knowledge.  Thomson  further 
hinted  that  the  reason  why  Casaubon  had  never  been 
noticed  before,  was,  that  he  had  not  sent  Scaliger  any 
of  his  pubhcations.  On  the  receipt  of  this  message, 
Casaubon  wrote  again,  prostrating  himself  at  the  feet  of 
the  prince  of  letters,  in  terms  which  we  should  call  extra- 
vagant, if  they  were  not  so  obviously  sincere.  He  apol- 
ogised for  not  having  offered  any  of  his  books,  because 
none  of  them  had  been  worthy  of  Scaliger's  notice.  He 
promised  to  send  the  Strabo  (1587),  but  not  till  he  had 
gone  through  it  again,  and  purged  it  of  a  few  of  its  many 
errors  ^.  This  was  March  4.  Still  no  reply.  On  April  25, 
Casaubon  wrote  again,  announcing  his  being  at  work  on 
Suetonius,  and  asking  help.  The  explanation  came  at  last 
in  the  course  of  the  summer  of  '94.  It  had  not  been 
disdain  on  Scaliger's  part,  it  was  simply  non-delivery  of 
letters.  Casaubon's  letters  had  been  so  slow  in  reaching 
Leyden,  that  the  first  two  had  been  delivered  together. 
And  Scaliger's  reply  to  the  two,  though  written  at  once, 
had  been  entrusted  to  Thomson  to  forward  to  Geneva,  via 
England.  Scaliger's  answer  to  Casaubon's  third  he  had 
given  to  Commelin,  the  Heidelberg  publisher,  who  had 

'  Ep.  II :  'Ex  raendis  foedissimis  quibus  totus  scatebat.' 


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64  ISAAC  CAS  A  [/SON.  [Sect. 

lost  it  along  with  a  presentation  copy  of  the  Cyclometrica. 
But  when  the  Scaliger  letter  arrived,  Casaubon  must  have 
felt  that  it  was  worth  waiting  for.  Scaliger,  who  was  con- 
temptuous towards  pretenders,  and  concealed  his  contempt 
too  little  for  his  own  peace,  was  no  niggard  of  praise  for 
true  learning.  If  he  bestowed  iiis  praise  rarely,  it  was 
because  he  rarely  had  occasion.  He  must  have  under- 
stood from  Thomson,  that  Casaubon's  dejected  tempera- 
ment and  isolated  position  required  encouragement.  He 
gave  it  in  no  measured  terms.  'Casaubon  was  not  to 
suppose  that  his  merits  were  now  for  the  first  time  revealed 
to  ScaHger.  Scaliger's  eye  had  been  on  him  long,  and  his 
voice  had  never  been  wanting  to  proclaim  them.'  From 
this  time  till  Scaliger's  death  (1609)  their  correspondence 
was  uninterrupted.  After  the  first  exchange  of  letters  in 
1594  its  tone  becomes  that  of  intimate  friendship  and 
sympathy.  They  never  met,  yet  esteem  and  sympathy 
grew  up  into  affection.  Scaliger's  last  letter  to  Casaubon, 
dated  August  28,  1608,  on  his  narrow  escape  from  drown- 
ing in  the  Seine,  is  an  expression  of  heartfelt  thankfulness 
for  the  providential  deliverance.  Casaubon's  entry  in  his 
diary,  when  the  news  reaches  Paris  of  Scaliger's  death, 
says,  that  he  has  lost  '  the  guide  of  his  studies,  the  incom- 
parable friend,  the  sweet  patron  of  his  life.'  What  other 
men  say  to  each  other  as  complimentary  forms  of  speech, 
these  two  sincerely  said  of  each  other  in  private.  Not  in  his 
letters,  but  in  his  private  journal,  Scaliger  is  to  Casaubon 
'lumen  literarum,  saeculi  nostri  lampas,  ornamentum  unicum 
Europae.'  In  more  discriminating  style,  Scaliger  always 
spoke  to  his  young  friends  of  Casaubon  as  '  doctissimus.' 
'  He  is  the  greatest  man  we  have  now  in  greek.  There  I 
yield  the  pas  to  him.  I  am  his  pupil ;  I  have  a  sense  of 
things,  but  not  learning.  Casaubon  is  the  most  learned 
man  now  living.  His  latin  style  is  excellent;  terse,  not 
diffuse  Italian  latin.     I  keep  all  his  letters  ^' 

'  Scaligerana,  2\  p.  45. 

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".]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  e^i 

Casaubon  always  regarded  Scaliger  as  the  'author  of 
his  reputation,'  'autorem  famse\'  Scaliger  would  have 
gladly  served  his  fortunes.  As  early  as  1594  he  began  to 
sound  the  feeling  in  Leyden  about  getting  him  invited 
thither^.  Theodore  Dousa  was  being  educated  at  Geneva, 
and  served  as  a  channel  of  communication.  Thomson,  too, 
coming  fresh  from  the  same  place,  might  report,  as  Black- 
burn did  of  Butler,  that  Casaubon  was  not  dead  but  buried. 
The  idea,  from  whatever  cause,  was  not  taken  up  by  the 
curators  of  Leyden.  Scaliger  had  not  given  Casaubon 
any  hint  of  his  attempt  to  serve  him.  But  Thomson  had 
not  been  so  prudent.  And  though  Casaubon  did  not 
venture  to  hope  for  such  an  honour  as  a  call  to  Leyden, 
he  began,  from  this  time,  to  be  restless,  and  to  seek  an 
opportunity  of  getting  away  from  Geneva.  If  Leyden 
was  beyond  his  reach,  there  remained  the  choice  between 
Germany  and  France.  In  Germany,  Strassburg  and 
Tubingen  were  closed  to  him  by  their  lutheran  orthodoxy. 
But  there  was  Heidelberg  to  which  he  might  aspire. 

The  university  of  Heidelberg  was,  at  this  time,  enjoying 
its  golden  age,  too  soon  to  be  exchanged  for  the  miseries 
of  the  thirty  years'  war,  in  which  the  Palatinate  had  so 
large  a  share.  The  elector,  Frederick  iv,  1592-1610,  was 
himself  not  without  acquirements.  Portus  could  write  to 
him  in  greek  ^.  Though  fond  of  the  vanities  and  amuse- 
ments of  a  court,  he  took  a  lively  interest  in  his  university. 
At  fourteen  he  had  acted  the  part  of  rector,  and,  when  he 
came  to  his  majority,  he  continued  occasionally  to  preside 
at  the  acts  and  disputations.  He  had  a  pride  in  collecting 
eminent  men.  Toleration  indeed  was  not  thought  of  A 
profession  of  Calvinism  was  required  of  all  who  entered. 
But  Calvinism,  intolerant  as  it  was,  was  not  so  narrow,  nor 
had  it  so  cramping  an  effect  on  the  mind,  as  the  contem- 
porary lutheranism.    At  the  neighbouring  universities,  on 

'  Scaligerana,  s°.  p.  47.  '^  Pithou  to  Seal.  ep.  80. 

'  Ap.  Schelhorn,  Vita  Camer,  p.  195. 
F 

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66  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

either  side  the  Rhine,  theological  disputation  was  in  full 
vogue.  At  Strassburg  the  work  of  Sturm  had  been  de- 
stroyed, in  a  generation,  by  the  lutheran  preachers.  At 
Tubingen  all  heads  were  busy  with  the  question  of  the 
ubiquity  of  the  body  of  Christ.  At  Heidelberg,  the  prin- 
ciple of  liberality  was  already  germinating.  Though 
Pareus'  '  Irenicum '  did  not  appear  till  1615,  it  was  the 
expression  of  a  tendency  which  had  been  growing  up  in 
the  university,  for  the  previous  twenty-five  years.  A 
paternal,  but  economical,  patronage  of  learning  had  created 
a  new  interest.  Science  and  learning  were  drawing  to 
themselves  talents,  which  were  elsewhere  wasted  on  theo- 
logical controversy.  Heidelberg  could  show,  at  one 
moment,  a  list  of  names  which  might  almost  rival  that  of 
Leyden,  if  Scaliger  were  excepted  from  the  comparison. 
Pareus,  Pacius,  Denis  Godefroy,  Freher,  Gruterus,  Smets, 
Obsopoeus,  Christmann,  were  among  the  professors; 
Sylburg  was  librarian  of  the  university,  Schede  (Melissus) 
of  the  Palatine  library,  as  yet  unplundered  of  its  manuscript 
treasures. 

Nothing  could  be  more  in  the  course  of  nature  than 
that  Casaubon,  a  calvinist,  and  the  rising  greek  scholar 
of  his  generation,  should  have  been  thought  of  for  Hei- 
delberg. We  must  suppose  that  Casaubon  had  thought 
of  it  for  himself,  when  his  uneasiness  at  Geneva  had  risen 
to  a  point,  which  made  him  catch  at  a  faint  hint  even  of 
a  call  to  Franequer.  In  1596  a  place  in  the  faculty  of  arts 
at  Heidelberg  was  actually  vacant  by  the  death  of  Pitho- 
poeus  in  January  of  that  year.  Casaubon  does  not  stir. 
The  place  was  filled  by  iEmilius  Portus  (son  of  Casaubon's 
own  teacher),  a  man  much  below  Casaubon,  both  in  the 
repute  and  the  reality  of  learning,  and  who  has  earned 
from  Bentley  the  title  of '  homo  futihssimus.'  And  Portus 
was  backed  by  Casaubon's  patron,  Canaye  de  Fresne,  who 
had  before  endeavoured  to  get  him  placed  at  Altdorf. 
Denis  Godefroy,  who  had  formerly  taught  at  Geneva,  was 

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11.]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  67 

called  to  Heidelberg  in  1598  (or  according  to  Hautz  in 
1600).  Yet  I  find  no  trace,  at  this  time,  either  of  Casaubon 
seeking  Heidelberg,  or  of  his  being  sought  for  it.  At  a 
later  period  ^  a  chair  was  offered  him  there,  but  the  time 
was  gone  by.  And  he  himself  knew  the  attractions  of 
Heidelberg.  He  had  visited  it  twice  ^,  en  route  to  Frank- 
fort, had  made  acquaintance  with  the  men  and  manners. 
,  It  is  true,  that  the  salaries  at  Heidelberg  were  on  the  most 
economical  scale.  But  then  they  were  better  than  the 
starvation  pay  of  Geneva  ;  the  necessaries  of  life  were  far 
cheaper^,  and  there  was  the  Palatine  library  to  set  against 
the  absolute  dearth  of  books  at  Geneva. 

One  reason  why  Casaubon  did  not  turn  towards  Hei- 
delberg may  have  been  that  his  wishes  and  hopes  were 
strongly  directed  towards  the  French  side.  Though  a 
native  of  Geneva,  Casaubon  was  a  Frenchman,  and  always 
speaks  of  himself  as  such.  Language,  manners,  and  con- 
nection all  drew  him  that  way.  And  about  the  very  time 
when  his  dissatisfaction  with  Geneva  began,  a  prospect 
was  held  out  to  him  of  removal,  on  advantageous  terms, 
into  France. 

His  anxiety  to  get  away  from  Geneva  begins  to 
show  itself  in  May  1594,  and  gradually  becomes  the 
dominant  feeling.  The  motive  has  been  variously  sought 
by  the  biographers,  in  a  constitutional  fretfulness  of 
temperament,  or  in  personal  disagreement  with  his  col- 
leagues, or  with  the  members  of  the  government  of 
the  republic. 

This  last  supposition  is  founded  upon  Casaubon's  many 
bitter  utterances  against  the  authorities  of  Geneva.  Ca- 
saubon had,  in  his  letters,  brought  so  heavy  charges  of 
dishonest  dealing  against  his  compatriots,  that  Grotius 
thought*  that  Rivet,  the  editor  of  the  letters,  would  not 
venture,  even  in  Holland,  and  in  1636,  to  print  passages 

1  1608.     See  Ephem.  p.  571.  ^  See  note  D  in  Appendix. 

3  Ep.  .52.  '  Grot.  Epp.  App.  ep.  37a. 

F   2 

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68  ISAAC  CASAVBON.  [Sect, 

which  could  be  so  Uttle  to  the  taste  of  the  Genevese 
('  minus  ad  Genevalem  stomachum').  But  the  transaction 
which  raised  Casaubon's  anger  was  of  a  date  much 
posterior  to  his  quitting  Geneva  in  1596.  That  affair 
was  as  follows.  When  Henri  Estienne  died  in  1598, 
Madame  Casaubon's  marriage  portion  was  still  unpaid. 
When  Casaubon  proceeded  to  claim  it,  he  found  he  was 
only  one  among  a  number  of  creditors,  of  whom  the 
principal  was  Nicolas  Leclerc,  for  400  crowns.  A  judg- 
ment was  obtained,  and  the  estate  of  the  intestate  was 
ordered  to  be  realised  for  the  settlement  of  his  debts. 
The  widow  of  Henri  had  died  shortly  after  her  husband. 
Leclerc  obtained  only  50  per  cent,  of  his  debt,  viz.  200 
crowns,  but  he  retained  ample  security  for  the  remaining 
half.  The  other  creditors  likewise  got  a  dividend,  on 
principal  and  interest.  Madame  Casaubon  and  the  three 
other  surviving  children  of  Henri  claimed  the  residue. 
But  Casaubon  got  nothing.  His  claim  was  disallowed 
by  the  Genevese  tribunal  on  the  ground  of  Robert 
Estienne's  will.  This  had  provided  that  his  printing 
establishment  should  never  be  removed  from  Geneva 
under  penalty  of  forfeiture  to  the  State.  It  was  accord- 
ingly decided  that  Casaubon's  part  of  the  liquidation 
could  not  be  removed  from  the  city,  but  had  lapsed  to 
the  exchequer.  Casaubon  speaks  of  himself  as  having 
'  lost  1300  crowns,'  but  this  must  be  considered  an  excited 
statement.  He  must  mean  that  1300  crowns  was  the 
whole  value  of  the  estate  of  which  he  lost  his  share. 
This  is  the  ground  for  his  passionate  denunciations,  in 
his  diary  and  letters,  of  the  Genevese.  Swindlers ;  ras- 
cally brigands;  humbugging  pharisees;  diabolical  hypo- 
crites, with  their  mock  piety!  The  intelligence  reached 
him  at  Paris  in  the  autumn  of  1607,  and  disturbed  him 
so  as  to  distract  him  for  weeks  from  his  books.  His 
equanimity  was  gone  for  a  time,  and  his  day  was  en- 
croached upon  by  the  necessity  of  urging  his    remon- 

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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  .       69 

strances  at  Geneva,  or  endeavouring  to  obtain  redress 
by  the  intervention  of  the  French  government. 

This  grievance,  which  did  not  arise  till  1607,  had  then 
nothing  to  do  with  his  discontent  at  Geneva,  which  began 
in  1594. 

Nor  was  it  mere  love  of  change  that  instigated  his 
projects  of  removal.  The  cause  is  not  obscure.  It  was 
the  pressure  of  positive  evil.  The  disadvantages  he 
laboured  under  at  Geneva  may  be  shortly  enumerated. 
An  insufficient  salary  i;  high  prices  caused  by  the  blockade 
on  the  side  of  Savoy;  the  want  of  books;  the  want  of 
leisure.  A  minor  evil  was  the  narrow  accommodation 
of  his  apartments  in  the  college,  where  his  only  study 
looked  upon  the  court,  in  which  the  boys  of  the  school 
disturbed  him  with  their  games  during  play  hours.  The 
first  of  these  evils  it  might  be  thought  was  remediable. 
A  small  augmentation  might  have  enabled  him  to  exist. 
But  the  republic  was  not  only  poor,  but  exhausted.  And 
letters  were  of  small,  rather  of  no,  account  in  Geneva. 
For  the  purposes  of  their  academy,  they  did  not  want 
anything  so  good  as  Casaubon.  If  Casaubon  was  valued 
at  all,  it  was  only  because  he  attracted  pupils.  Except 
for  this  any  young  regent  could  do  all  the  teaching 
required.  In  Geneva  there  was  no  prospect  for  him  in 
the  future,  and  even  the  present  scanty  stipend  was  not 
secure.  The  council  that  had  dismissed  Lect  might,  any 
day,  tell  Casaubon  that  they  could  pay  him  no  longer. 
He  had  exhausted  the  classical  books  he  had  been  able 
to  procure ;  his  father-in-law's  library  was  closed  against 
him.  But  the  aid  of  books  was  indispensable  if  he  was 
to  produce  anything  exhaustive  of  a  subject.  Above 
all  he  sighed  for  leisure,  and  to  be  set  free  from  the 
drudgery  of  teaching.  He  would  gladly  have  passed 
the  rest  of  his  days  at  Geneva,   were  these  difficulties 

['  On  Casaubon's  salary  at  Geneva  from  1590-1594,  see  note  E  in  Appendix, 
P-  75-] 


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;o  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

removable.  But  they  were  not.  He  must  leave.  When 
he  moves,  it  must  be  into  France.  Books,  leisure, 
necessaries— these  are  the  conditions.  Where  can  they 
be  found? 

In  1594  a  proposal  was  made  to  him  from  MontpelUer. 
The  conditions  were  not  tempting.  Montpelher  was 
almost  as  poor  as  Geneva,  and  the  protestants  in  Langue- 
doc  were  not  more  secure  than  those  in  Geneva.  Sarrasin 
and  Bongars  dissuade.  Casaubon  is  wiUing,  but  refuses 
in  compliance  with  their  advice.  De  Fresne,  however, 
who  had  secretly  prompted  the  first  offer,  continues  to 
press  the  municipal  council  at  Montpelher,  and  obtains 
better  terms'.  In  October,  1595,  a  formal  request  from 
the  city  of  Montpelher  is  made  to  the  council  of  Geneva, 
to  send  them,  either  on  loan  or  permanently,  Simon 
Goulart  and  Isaac  Casaubon  Vtant  pour  conserver  parmi 
eux  la  pure  et  vraye  religion,  que  pour  instruire  leur 
jeunesse  es  lettres  humaines.'  The  council  refuse.  The 
two  are  'men  who  cannot  be  done  without'  But  the 
principals  had  not  been  consulted  in  the  transaction. 
When  they  are  told  of  it,  they  are  found  to  be  wilhng 
to  leave.  Goulart,  after  some  resistance,  at  last  consents 
to  remain  at  Geneva^.     But  Casaubon  will  not.     He  can- 


'  De  Fresne  was  instigating  the  municipality  of  MontpelUer.  But  behind 
de  Fresne  was  de  Thou,  who  was  the  first  person  to  urge  the  acquisition  of 
Casaubon  for  France.  See  ep.  785  :  '  Prime  tibi  venit  in  mentem  traducendum 
me  esse  in  Galliam.' 

^  Geneva  Mss.  Reg.  du  pet.  cons.  15  octob.  1595,  f".  183  :  '.  .  .  ont  este 
venues  lettres  escrites  a  Mess"^'.  par  le  Sieur  des  Fresnes  en  juin  dernier,  et 
autres  du  24  de  'f'''^  dernier  par  les  consuls  conseil  et  consistoire  de  la  ville  de 
Montpelher,  et  de  leur  mandement,  priant  les  favoriser  de  tant  que  de  leur 
accorder  lesd.  S'".  Goulard  et  Casaubon,  tant  pour  conserver  parmi  eux  la  pure 
et  vraye  religion,  que  pour  instruire  leur  jeunesse  es  lettres  humaines,  a  este 
arreste  qu'on  s'en  excuse  envers  eux,  par  lettres,  le  plus  doucement  et  honor- 
ablement  que  faire  se  pourra  sur  la  nScessite  de  tels  personnages.' 

'  Geneva  mss.  Reg.  du  pet.  cons.  17  octob.  1595,  f".  184 :  '.  .  .  led.  Sr. 
Goulard  aprfes  quelque  difBculte  faite  a  finalement  consenti  de  continuer  icy  sa 
charge ;  mais  led.  sieur  Casaubon  s'est  tellement  excuse  sur  la  ndcessite  de  sa 
famille,  qui  s'augmente  annuellement,  qu'il  les  a  resolus  de  ne  pouvoir  plus 
servir  a  si  petits  gages,  ayant  d'ailleurs  des  longtemps  propose  de  faire  un 


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"•]  GENEVA.     1578-1596.  71 

not  maintain  himself  on  his  Genevan  pay.  But  the  Council 
are  in  earnest.  They  are  aware  '  what  profit  and  honour 
the  learning  and  renown  of  the  sieur  Casaubon  confer 
upon  Geneva/  they  will  double  his  pay  for  this  year,  and 
will  do  the  same  year  by  year.  Only  this  last  intention 
is  not  to  be  made  public,  in  order  not  to  rouse  the  jealousy 
of  the  other  professors. 

But  it  is  now  of  no  use.  Casaubon  wishes  to  visit  his 
mother;  he  has  long  designed  a  journey  to  MontpeUier 
to  see  de  Fresne.  In  short,  he  is  determined  to  settle 
in  France.  He  has  outgrown  Geneva;  he  is  become, 
as  was  afterwards  said  of  Madame  de  Stael :  '  trop  grand 
poisson  pour  notre  lac;'  he  will  migrate  into  more 
spacious  waters. 

voiage  aud.  MontpeUier  pour  visiter  sa  mfere,  prians  les  d.  sr.  ministres,  que 
Messeigneurs  p^sent  comme  il  faut  le  profit  et  honeur  qu'aporte  en  ceste  ville 
la  doctrine  et  le  renom  dud.  sieur  Casaubon,  pour  y  avoir  tel  esgard  que  de 
raison,  a  estS  arrests  qu'on  luy  augmente  ses  gages  pour  ce  coup  de  trois  cent 
florins,  et  qu'on  advise  de  le  gratifier  d'an  en  an  de  mesme  somme,  sans  neant- 
raoins  qu'on  le  luy  die,  afin  d'eviter  toute  jalousie  des  autres  professeurs.' 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECTION   II. 


Note  A.  p.  13. 

While  every  university,  almost  every  school,  in  Germany 
has  its  history,  there  is  no  special  monograph  on  the  Academy 
of  Geneva.  Materials  are  not  w^anting.  Professor  Cellerier 
has  traced  an  outline  only  of  what  might  be  vs^ritten :  Bulletin 
de  la  Society  de  I'Histoire  protest,  tome  4.  M.  Crottet  has 
printed  a  journal  of  one  Merlin,  who  must  have  been  a  student 
along  with  Isaac  Casaubon.  The  accounts  in  the  current  lives 
of  Calvin  are  very  loose  and  inexact,  e.  g.  they  mostly  speak 
of  the  '  academy'  as  distinct  from  the  '  school.'  But  the  statutes 
— 'Leges' — of  1559  call  the  whole  institution  'Academia,'  and 
distinguish  the  lower  section  of  it  as  '  gymnasium.'  The  con- 
temporary writers  generally  speak  of  'the  schools,'  'les  escholes.' 
As  to  the  number  of  the  students,  the  number  1000  has  estab- 
lished itself,  doubtless  permanently,  in  the  modern  histories. 
Henry,  Leben  Calvin's,  3.  391,  'more  than  a  thousand  daily,' 
followed  by  Dyer,  Life  of  Calvin,  p.  459.  The  authority  for 
this  figure  is  an  anonymous  letter,  quoted  in  Sayous,  Etudes, 
I.  107,  'c'est  merveille  des  auditeurs  des  le9ons  de  M.  Calvin; 
j'estime  qu'ils  sont  journellement  plus  de  mille.'  But  these  are 
the  congregation  who  followed  Calvin's  doctrinal  sermons,  of 
which  he  preached  2025.  Stahelin,  however,  Johannes  Calvin, 
Leben,  i.  494,  will  have  '900  regular  students,'  'nicht  weniger 
als  neunhundert  junge  Manner,'  a  blunder  apparently  arising 
from  mistranslating  Gaberel's  'cent  neuf  Gaberel,  i.  338, 
gives  the  number  of  students  exactly,  from  the  '  livre  du  rec- 
teur,'  as  109,  and  distinguishes  them  from  the  auditors  of  Calvin, 
whom  he  reckons  at  800.  The  total  number  of  scholars,  includ- 
ing the  boys  in  the  lower  school,  was  600  (Leges  Academise, 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  II.  73 

p.  i).  Beza  (to  Farel  ap.  Baum.  Leben,  &c.  i.  519)  says  the 
' scholastici '  at  Lausanne,  in  1558,  were  'nearly  700.'  The 
foreign  students  formed  the  larger  part  of  the  whole ;  cf.  Dos- 
chius,  Vita  Hotoman. :  'cum  propter  urbis  et  doctorum  celebri- 
tatem  undique  confluerent  auditores,  interque  eos  e  Germania 
aliquot  adolescentes  principum  filii.'  Tossanus,  writing  to 
Hotoman,  in  1586  (Hotoman.  Epp.  ep.  143),  names,  among  the 
German  nobles,  two  Counts  Witgenstein,  Count  Karl  von 
Ortemburg,  with  his  tutor  Theodor  Clement.  Cf.  Goldasti, 
Epp.  p.  118.  The  existence  of  the  academy  was  still  precarious 
in  1611,  and  it  was  occasionally  subvented  by  the  reformed 
churches  throughout  France.  M6m.  et  Corresp.  de  Du  Plessis- 
Mornay,  11.  296.  sept.  1611:  'J'ai  reprdsentd  le  m^rite  de 
vostre  seigneurie,  6glise,  et  acad^mie ;  la  ndcessitd  aussi  a 
laquelle  tant  de  mis^rables  affaires  avaient  reduict  vostre  ville  ; 
telle  que  vostre  dicte  academic,  qui  en  faict  une  bonne  partie, 
estoit  en  danger  de  d6perir  s'il  n'y  estoit  d'ailleurs  pourveu.' 


Note  B.  p.  20. 

The  evidence  for  this  fact  is  three  documents  printed  by 
M.  Th.  Dufour,  L'Intermed.  3.  81.  i.  The  minute-book  of  a 
notary,  Jean  Jovenon,  preserved  at  Geneva,  has,  under  date 
24  aout,  1583,  a  contract  of  marriage  between  'Spect.  Isaac 
Cazaubon,  prof,  en  grec,  fils  de  Spect.  Arnault  Casaubon, 
ministre  du  saint  evangile  en  I'eglise  refform^e  de  Crest  et 
Verre  en  Daulphin^e  d'une  part,  et  honn.  fille  Marye  Prolyot, 
fille  de  feu  honn.  M.  Pierre  Prolyot,  en  son  vivant  maistre 
chirurgien,  et  de  Dame  Jehanne  Buret,  de  la  ville  de  Bour- 
deaux,  habitant  a  Geneve,  d'autre  (part).'  2.  The  second 
document  is  the  Registre  des  ddces,  in  which  the  entry  is 
'  Marye,  femme  de  Isac  Casaubon,  bourgeois,  est  morte  d'une 
apoplexie,  ag6e  d'environ  25  ans,  ce  27  may,  1585,  au  collayge.' 
3.  The  register  of  baptisms  contains  the  entry  of  the  baptism 
of  their  daughter,  called  Jeanne,  after  Isaac's  mother,  7  jan. 

1585- 

We  must  suppose  that  this  daughter,  Jeanne,  died  young,  as 
no  mention,  that  I  am  aware  of,  is  made  of  her  anywhere  in 
Casaubon's  papers.  It  must  have  been  before  1598,  as  the 
daughter  born  in  that  year  received  the  name  Jeanne.     That 


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74  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  II. 

there  should  have  been  no  allusion  to  the  first  wife  would  not 
have  been  surprising,  as  we  have  hardly  any  memoranda  which 
go  back  as  far  as  1585.  But  it  is  very  probable,  as  M.  Dufour 
conjectures,  that  Cas.  ep.  3,  date  August  23,  1585,  where  he 
speaks  of  a  great  misfortune  which  has  suddenly  overtaken 
him,  is  to  be  understood  of  his  wife's  death.  The  words  are, 
'  Dum  ille  discessum  parat,  ecce  repentina  calamitate,  ceu  fluctu 
decumano  aliquo,  ita  totus  obruor,  ut  omnem  continue  et  scri- 
bendi  et  aliud  quidvis  agendi  curam  omitterem.  sic  factum  est, 
ut  ille  ad  vos  sine  meis  literis  rediret;  ac  nunc  quoque  quo- 
minus  pluribus  ad  te  scribam,  idem  me  casus  tristissimus 
impedit/ 

Note  C.  p.  28. 

Ephemerides,  p.  57.  9  kal.  jan,  1597:  'Studium,  non  sine 
dolore  animi  ob  internam,  et  tibi,  o  Deus,  notam  caussam. 
Domine,  fateor  ita  maritam  esse  meam  ut  quae  alleviationi  et 
auxilio  esse  debet,  sit  interdum  studiis  nostris  impedimento. 
scis  tamen,  o  Pater,  quantam  morositatem  quo  animo  feram, 
dum  illud  unice  vereor,  ne  semel  principium  aliquod  discordise 
in  utriusque  mentem  penetret.'  Ibid,  p.  41  :  '  Tu  scis,  mi 
Deus,  mei  doloris  caussam  domesticam.  vel  igitur  medere  huic 
incommodo  studiorum  meorum,  si  ita  placet,  o  Pater,  aut  ei 
ferendo  da  vires.'  Complaints  of  this  sort,  besides  that  they 
are  found  only  in  the  earlier  pages  of  the  diary,  are  greatly 
overbalanced  by  the  far  more  numerous  passages  which  testify 
not  only  to  intense  affection,  but  to  helpless  dependence  on 
Florence's  watchful  care ;  e.  g.  ep.  603,  to  Cappell :  '  Quotidie 
videtur  dolor  crescere,  nunc  utique  absente  uxore,  in  qua  una 
ex  humanis  rebus,  curarum  mearum  est  solatium  ac  levamen.' 
Eph.  p.  131 :  '  Deum  O.  M.  supplex  veneror  regat  uxorem 
liberosque  meos.  non  est  ilia  quidem  dimidia  pars  animae  mese, 
sed  tota  quasi  anima.' 

Note  D.  p.  67. 

There  were  two  visits  to  Germany.  The  first  was  in  April, 
1590.  On  this  occasion  Casaubon  was  at  Frankfort  and  Heidel- 
berg. Ep.  5,  to  Theodore  Canter,  was  written  from  Frankfort. 
A  letter  to  Lipsius  (Burmann,  Syll.  i.  348)  is  dated  20  April, 
o.  s.  1590,  from  the  shop  of  Le  Preux,  as  he  is  on  the  point  of 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  II.  >]$ 

setting  out  for  Heidelberg.  This  was  the  visit  on  which  he 
must  have  made  the  excerpta  from  the  'Fasti  Siculi,'  in  the 
Palatine  library,  spoken  of  ep.  252,  and  possibly  inspected  the 
Palatine  Athenaeus,  which  he  afterwards  obtained  on  loan, 
ep.  229. 

The  second  visit  was  in  Jan.  1593.  For  this  journey  he 
obtained  leave  of  absence  from  the  Council.  Geneva  mss.  Reg. 
du  pet.  cons.  15  decemb.  1592.  fo.'  242  :  '  S"".  Isaac  Casaubon  .  .  . 
ayant  estd  ordonng  de  luy  bailler  des  gages  aultant  qu'a  ung 
de  la  ville,  a  estd  raportd  qu'il  desire  faire  ung  voyage  j  usque 
a  Francfort  vers  M'.  de  Fresne,  ayant  promis  de  revenir  au 
service  de  la  Seigneurie,  arrests  qu'on  luy  donne  congg  a  ceste 
condition.'  Ded.  of  Suetonius  to  Canaye  de  Fresne,  p.  2  :  'In 
Germaniam  tuo  accitu  veni.'  I  do  not  find  that  he  went  further 
than  Strassburg.  Adversaria,  torn.  23 :  '  Itinere  meo  Ger- 
manico.'  Ibid. :  '  In  Aristophane  observata,  0800  iviipfpya,  Argen- 
tinae,  a.  d.  kal.  feb.  1593.' 

[Note  E.  p.  69. 

A  letter  from  M.  Thdophile  Dufour  to  Mr.  Pattison,  dated 
December  5,  1874,  communicates  the  following  facts  with  regard 
to  Casaubon's  salary  at  Geneva.  In  1590  he  was  in  receipt  of 
500  florins  (=1250  francs)  a  year,  his  lodging,  with  the  presents 
of  corn  and  wine,  making  the  whole  sum  up  to  2500  francs  or 
£100.  This  was  the  same  salary  as  that  of  the  ministers.  In 
1592  (December  4)  this  sum  was  increased  by  an  addition  of 
300  florins  (750  francs)  a  year.  In  1594  (28  October)  a  fresh 
addition  of  300  florins  was  made,  which  was  made  annual  on 
October  17,  1595.  '  Evidemment,'  adds  M.  Dufour,  '  le  Conseil 
faisait  tout  ce  qu'il  pouvait  pour  conserver  Casaubon  a  notre 
Academic.'] 


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III. 

MONTPELLIER. 

159&— 1599- 

MoNTPELLiER  ^,  during  the  sovereignty  of  the  kings  of 
Majorca,  had  been  a  flourishing  entrepot  of  commerce. 
Nominally  dependent,  it  had  enjoyed  real  self-government, 
and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  free  cities  of  the  empire,  this 
independence  had  led  to  wealth.  Incorporation  with 
France  had  begun  its  decline.  It  was  a  decaying  town 
before  the  wars  of  religion  came,  at  the  close  of  the  i6th 
century,  to  desolate  Languedoc. 

In  1596,  the  city,  though  saved  by  its  fortifications  from 
the  worst  extremities,  had  lost  its  commerce  in  the  troubles. 
Though  still  the  second  city  in  Languedoc,  its  treasury 
was  empty,  and  in  the  general  depreciation  of  property  it 
could  scarcely  support  the  weight  of  the  general  taxation. 
The  university,  having  no  independent  endowments,  was 
sharing  the  depression  of  the  town.  The  university  was 
an  old  foundation,  its  medical  school  having  existed  long 
before  it  received  a  charter  by  papal  bull  in  1289.  It  rose 
upon  the  ruins  of  Cordova,  destroyed  by  catholic  fana- 

'  On  the  Academy  of  Montpellier,  I  have  had  recourse  to  Faucillon,  ap. 
MSmoires  de  I'academie  des  sciences  de  Montpellier,  3.  500  ;  Germain,  in  Mem. 
de  la  Soc.  archSologique  de  Montp.  for  1856,  p.  247,  seq. ;  Hist,  de  la  Commune 
de  Montpellier,  1851 ;  Academia  Monspeliensis  a  Jacobo  Primirosio  Mons- 
peliensi  et  Oxoniensi  doctore  descripta,  Oxon.  1631 ;  Astruc,  M^moires  pour 
servir  a  I'histoire  de  la  Faculte  de  m^decine  a  Montpellier,  Paris,  1867.  A 
paper  in  Mem.  de  I'Acad.  d.  Sciences  de  Montp.  1872,  tome  5,  p.  207,  seq.  by 
M.  Germain,  with  the  promising  title,  '  Isaac  Casaubon  a  Montpellier,'  is  com- 
piled only  from  printed  sources,  and  adds  nothing  to  our  information. 


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MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  77 

ticism,  to  be  the  first  medical  school  out  of  Italy.     Padua 
— where  our  Harvey  was  now  (1598)  following  the  lectures 
of  Fabricius  ab  Acquapendente,  had,  for  a  century,  held 
the  first  place.     But  the  flourishing  period  of  Montpellier 
was  now  over.     Its  throngs  of  students  had  disappeared, 
and  the  six  regius  readers  of  physic  alone  represented  the 
numerous  readers  and  demonstrators  of  anatomy,  whom 
the  fees  of  the  students  had  once  sufficed  to  maintain. 
Yet  the  spirit  of  better  days  was  not  wholly  lost  in  these 
years  of  distress.     The  school  of  Montpellier  was  not 
saved  by  its  endowments.    The  salary  of  the  royal  readers 
remained  at  its  old  figure,   50  livres — a  mere  nominal 
stipend,  even  if  it  had  been  regularly  paid.     It  was  saved 
by  the  tradition  of  science.    Thirty  years,  a  whole  gener- 
ation, of  religious  war,  had  not  extinguished  this  tradition 
in  the  medical  school.     As  soon  as  the  breathing  time 
came,  after  the  accession  of  Henry  iv,  the  old  habits  and 
usages  revived  of  themselves.    The  salaries  of  the  pro- 
fessors were  raised,  by  royal  ordinance,  and  the  strict 
requirements  which  had  contributed  to  the  former  celebrity 
of  the  school  were  spontaneously  restored.    These  were 
principally  four. 

The  examinations  for  the  degree  of  m.d.  were  more 
severe  than  an3rwhere  else,  not  only  in  France,  but  in 
Europe,  more  severe  even  than  Padua.  First  and  last, 
sixteen  of  them  had  to  be  passed  before  the  doctor's  hood 
could  be  assumed.  Numbers  of  students  would  come  to 
follow  the  lectures  at  Montpellier,  and  go  away  to  get 
the  degree  at  other  universities,  where  it  could  be  had  on 
easier  terms. 

The  old  practice  of  disputation  was  adhered  to  as  the 
form  in  which  the  exercises  for  degrees  were  chiefly 
exacted,  instead  of  the  more  convenient  and  otiose 
practice  of  written  thesis.  Disputations  were  going  on 
most  days  in  the  week,  so  often  indeed,  as  to  leave  scant 
time  for  lectures.     In  the  course  of  a  year  there  was 

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78  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

scarce  any  medical   theorem  but  would  be  debated  in 
public,  '  to  the  great  profit  of  the  students.' 

The  professorial  chairs  were  awarded  by  competition. 
An  instance  is  recorded  in  which  this  was  carried  to  an 
unreasonable  excess,  when  eleven  candidates  disputed  a 
chair  for  thirteen  months,  each  maintaining  twelve  theses. 

Lastly,  besides  the  six  salaried,  or  royal,  readers  the 
old  custom  was  not  wholly  disused  that  any  doctor  of 
medicine  might  teach. 

The  consequence  of  this  revival  was,  in  a  very  few 
years,  the  recovery  of  the  celebrity  of  the  school.  A 
throng  of  medical  pupils  from  all  nations  was  to  be  found 
there.  Dr.  Primrose,  who  studied  at  MontpelHer  in  the 
early  part  of  the  17th  century,  found  there  Spaniards, 
Germans,  Poles,  Danes,  Swedes,  Swiss,  and  Scotch, 
besides  the  French  students.  He  himself  was  the  only 
Englishman :  though  born  and  educated  in  France,  he 
was  the  son  of  Dr.  Primrose,  canon  of  Windsor.  From 
his  notes  the  above  account  has  been  chiefly  derived. 

The  faculty  of  Law  was  wholly  provincial,  and  as  there 
was  another  faculty  in  exercise  at  Toulouse,  it  could  at 
best  divide  the  province  of  Languedoc  with  its  rival.  But 
the  law  schools,  both  of  Toulouse  and  Montpellier,  had 
been  reduced  to  the  lowest  condition  during  the  troubles. 
The  rector  of  the  university  of  Toulouse,  in  July  1598, 
complains  of  the  decay  of  the  school:  declares  that  it 
cannot  subsist  much  longer :  that  the  youth  of  Languedoc 
will  have  to  be  sent  to  other  universities  to  get  that  legal 
training  which  they  cannot  find  at  home :  and  reminds 
his  audience  that  Cujas  and  Gregoire  would  neither  of 
them  stay  to  teach  in  their  native  town,  because  of  the 
miserable    poverty   of   the   stipends  ^.      The    school    of 

'  Mege,  Hist,  de  Languedoc,  4.  625.  Malenfont,  in  1617  (in  Cousin,  Fragm. 
Philos.  3.  79),  reckons  the  number  of  persons  who  spoke  latin  in  Toulouse  at 
6000.  But  far  the  larger  part  of  these  must  have  been  monks  and  other  eccle- 
siastics. Richeome,  Expost.  Apol.  p.  54,  says  that  the  number  of  students  at 
Toulouse  had  sunk  to  300. 

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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  79 

Montpellier  was  in  no  better  condition.  It  had  indeed 
four  royal  or  salaried  regents  of  civil  law.  But  during 
the  catholic  reaction  civil  law  was  out  of  favour;  the 
salary  was  insignificant,  and  not  made  up  by  pupils'  fees. 
We  are  not  surprised  to  hear  that  in  1590  there  were  only 
two  of  these  four  readers  remaining,  and  these  threatening 
to  resign  unless  something  were  done  for  them. 

The  lowest  place  was  held  by  the  faculty  of  arts. 
There  had,  indeed,  from  ancient  times  existed  a  school  of 
arts  which  was  elevated  into  a  faculty  in  the  15th  century. 
But  while  the  medical  and  law  faculties  enjoyed,  each  of 
them  separately  and  independently  of  the  other,  the  title 
of  a  '  university,'  and  were  governed  by  their  own  statutes, 
the  faculty  of  arts  was  only  known  as  the  '  Ecole-mage ' 
(majeure).  It  was  not  till  a  much  later  time  (1723)  that  the 
three  faculties  were  incorporated  into  one  university. 
During  the  civil  wars,  the  ecole-mage  ceased  to  function. 
The  building  in  which  it  was  held  became  a  ruin,  and  the 
commune  was  unable  to  pay  the  salary  even  of  a  single 
regent.  As  soon  as  there  began  to  be  a  prospect  of  a 
settled  government  in  the  province,  one  of  the  first  cares 
of  the  consuls  of  Montpellier  was  the  restoration  of  their 
school.  In  1594  they  obtained  a  royal  ordinance  for 
restoring  the  civil  law  readers,  and  augmenting  their 
stipends  to  300  livres.  Two  new  professors  were  chosen 
by  public  competition,  and  the  faculty  of  law  entered  upon 
a  new  and  brilliant  period.  It  only  remained  to  place  the 
school  of  arts  on  a  level  with  the  two  superior  faculties. 
The  appointment  of  the  regent  in  this  school  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  consuls.  For  MontpelHer,  having  become 
almost  entirely  calvinist,  had  chasse  its  bishop,  who  had 
hitherto  exercised  the  function  of  chancellor  of  the  uni- 
versity. And  though  the  parlement  of  Languedoc,  sitting 
■  at  Toulouse,  had  arrogated  to  itself  a  right  of  interference 
in  the  affairs  of  the  university,  it  was  not  able  to  enforce 
its  claim  upon  a  protestant  population  protected  by  their 

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8o  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

walls.  The  constant  intercourse  between  the  church  of 
Montpellier  and  that  of  Geneva  might  have  naturally  led 
the  consuls  to  fix  their  eyes  upon  Casaubon  ;  but  they 
were  besides  prompted  by  de  Fresne,  who  was  bent  upon 
getting  Casaubon  into  France.  De  Fresne,  who  was  located 
at  Castres,  worked  through  Ranchin.  William  Ranchin 
was  of  an  old  legal  family  at  MontpeUier.  He  had  suc- 
ceeded his  father  in  one  of  the  regius  readerships  of  law, 
an  office  which  he  continued  to  hold  after  he  was  trans- 
ferred (1601)  to  the  'chambre  de  I'edit,'  performing  the 
duties  of  reader  by  deputy.  He  was  a  man  of  reputation 
and  weight,  and  is  spoken  of  by  Casaubon  as  '  doctis- 
simus,'  and  that  in  the  private  diary.  In  1594,  though 
only  34  years  of  age,  he  was  chosen  first  consul  of  his 
native  town,  as  his  father  had  been  before  him,  and  his 
brother  became  after  him. 

In  that  year  (1594),  and  through  Ranchin,  came  the  first 
proposal  to  Casaubon.  The  conditions  are  not  stated,  but 
they  were  such  that  Casaubon  rejected  them  at  once,  not 
without  expressing  some  surprise  that  de  Fresne,  so 
much  his  friend,  should  have  sanctioned  such  an  offer. 
We  may  conjecture  that  it  was  the  precariousness  of  the 
position  that  deterred  Casaubon.  For  the  regents  in 
medicine  and  law  had  a  salary  secured  by  patent,  partly 
upon  the  revenues  of  the  university,  and  partly  upon  the 
general  taxes  of  Languedoc.  Of  the  300  livres— the 
amount  of  the  annual  stipend — a  sixth  part  was  charged 
upon  the  university  revenues,  which  consisted  wholly  in 
fees,  and  was  payable  by  the  faculty  ;  the  remainder  was 
secured  on  the  gabelle,  and  was  payable  by  the  officers  of 
the  revenue.  Small  as  the  stipend  was,  it  was  at  any  rate 
a  certainty.  But  the  faculty  of  arts  had  no  such  resources ; 
indeed  the  faculty  had  no  existence ;  for  there  were  not 
only  no  regents,  but  no  graduates.  It  was  necessary  to 
recreate  the  faculty,  and  to  place  its  professor  upon  the 
same  permanent  footing  as  those  in  the  superior  faculties. 

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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  81 

A  fresh  application  was  made  to  the  government  of 
Henry  iv.  Notwithstanding  the  frightful  anarchy  of  the 
whole  realm,  the  embarrassment  of  the  finances,  and  the 
foreign  invasion  on  the  northern  frontier,  the  application 
was  immediately  met.  The  restoration  of  the  decayed 
educational  establishments  was  a  primary  object  with  the 
council  of  state.  At  this  very  time  a  commission  was 
engaged  in  reforming  the  statutes  of  the  university  of 
Paris.  July  9,  1596,  letters  patent  were  issued,  providing 
for  the  restoration  of  the  college  which  used  to  be  at 
Montpellier.  The  patent  sets  out  the  general  views  of 
the  government  for  the  restoration  of  schools,  and,  pro- 
ceeds ;  '  seeing  that  our  city  of  Montpellier  is  the  second 
city  of  our  province  of  Languedoc,  that  it  hath  in  its 
neighbourhood  several  other  towns,  boroughs,  and 
villages,  in  the  which  a  number  of  young  persons,  from 
want  of  a  college,  occupy  their  time  in  unprofitable 
courses  to  the  damage  of  our  state ;  and  further  seeing 
that  there  arrive  and  abide  in  the  aforesaid  city  many 
learned  and  sufficient  personages,  who  continue  of  no  use 
to  the  public  and  without  occupation,  we  ordain  and 
enjoin,  &c.'  The  patent  goes  on  to  direct  the  consuls  of 
Montpellier  to  restore  the  school  of  arts,  and  to  provide  it 
with  a  sufficient  number  of  regents  for  instruction  in  the 
liberal  arts,  humane  letters,  and  the  greek  and  latin 
languages,  ^ '  in  such  sort  as  to  render  youth  capable  of 
learning  the  other  sciences.'  The  cost  may  be  charged 
on  the  gabelle,  and  an  additional  tax  of  12  deniers  on  each 
quintal  of  salt  is  specially  affected  to  this  service. 

On  the  strength  of  this  appropriation  of  funds,  the 
town-council  of  Montpellier  proceeded  to  appoint  a  dele- 
gacy of  eight  persons  (octumviri)  to  prepare  a  scheme  for 
the  college  of  Arts.    As  the  school  was  to  be  mixed,  the 

'  The  letters  patent  are  printed  in  Mdm.  de  la  Soci^te  archdologique  de 
Montp.  I.  276.  The  deed  of  appointment  of  March  12,  1597,  is  printed  in 
appendix,  note  A,  from  the  original  in  Bumey  mss.  367.  12^. 

G 

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83  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

commission  was  '  mipartie,'  four  protestants,  and  four 
catholics,  one  of  the  calvinist  ministers,  Gigord,  being  a 
member  of  it,  but  no  catholic  ecclesiastic.  This  commis- 
sion having  now  an  authorised  position  to  offer,  soon 
concluded  an  arrangement  with  Casaubon.  He  was  to 
have  the  titles  of  '  conseiller  du  roi,'  and  ^ '  professeur 
stipendie  aux  langues  et  bonnes  lettres.'  The  '  stipendie,' 
though  in  writing  to  Scaliger  ^  Casaubon  omits  it,  signals 
his  position  as  of  the  same  rank  with  the  medical  and  law 
readers.  He  was  to  have  266  ecus,  in  money,  with 
lodging,  fuel,  and  some  other  small  perquisites  in  kind. 
The  266  ecus  were,  twelve  months  later,  raised  to  1000 
livres,  nearly  £tcx)  sterling.  '  Honestissimae  conditiones,' 
Casaubon  calls  these  terms,  implying  that  they  were  very 
respectable,  but  not  brilliant.  They  were  at  least  a  great 
improvement  upon  Geneva.  And  he  was  besides  promised 
that  he  would  find  at  Montpellier  no  lack  of  lovers  of 
classical  letters,  who  were  longing  for  the  arrival  of  a 
teacher,  and  who  would  welcome  him  with  open  arms. 
Behind  these  positive  advantages,  there  was  a  secret 
suggestion  which  came  from  de  Fresne,  and  which  prob- 
ably worked  more  powerfully  than  all  the  rest,  a  sug- 
gestion of  further  promotion  in  the  distance.  What  the 
promotion  might  be,  or  what  must  be  its  indispensable 
condition,  were  considerations  too  remote  for  immediate 
computation.  The  libraries  and  book-resources  of  Paris 
were  all  that  Casaubon  saw  on  the  distant  horizon. 

He  was  allowed  to  depart  from  Geneva,  where  he  had 
represented  classical  learning  as  it  never  was  represented 
there  before  or  since,  without  any  effort  to  detain  him, 
without  any  recognition  of  his  services.  Goulart  indeed 
wrote  to  Scaliger  that  ^ '  notre  escole  est  maigre,  surtout 

^  So  the  letters  patent.  This  proves  Casaubon's  exactitude  in  writing  to 
Seal.  ep.  117,  where  he  calls  his  professorship  'linguarum  et  huraaniorum 
literarum  professio.' 

^  Ep.  117. 

*  Ep.  fran9.  p.  265. 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  83 

depuis  le  depart  de  Mons'.  Casaubon,  fort  respecte,  en 
Languedoc'  But  Goulart  was  an  exception.  The  public 
opinion  of  Geneva,  which  did  not  care  to  retain  him, 
charged  love  of  money  as  his  motive.  '  He  wanted  to 
raise  his  price  upon  his  native  city,  which  would  show 
him  that  it  could  do  without  him.'  Casaubon's  amiable 
heart  consented  to  ascribe  these  sneers  only  to  the  excess 
of  the  love  his  friends  bore  him,  making  them  unjust  to 
him.  ^ '  What  have  I  not  tried,'  he  writes,  '  to  be  allowed 
to  be  here!  God  is  my  witness  that  I  have  sought 
nothing  more  than  such  a  small  increase,  as  should  allow 
me  to  give  all  my  mind  to  my  studies,  by  setting  me  free 
from  anxiety  about  the  means  of  life.  Wealth  I  have 
not  desired ;  but  it  was  high  time  that  I  should  at  last 
make  some  provision  for  myself,  my  wife,  and  children, 
a  provision  which  is  denied  me  here.' 

On  September  23,  1596,  he  closed  with  the  Montpellier 
offer.  On  November  20  he  obtained  his  conge  from  the 
Genevan  Council.  At  Lyon  he  took  boat  down  the  river, 
and  arrived  at  Montpellier  on  the  last  day  of  the  year. 

Casaubon's  entry  into  Montpellier  was  a  triumphant 
procession.  A  mile  beyond  the  gates  he  was  met  by  a 
cortege  composed  of  his  own  friends,  of  the  regents  of  the 
faculties,  and  at  their  head  more  than  one  of  the  consuls 
of  the  year, — though  not  the  first  consul.  A  few  months 
later,  when  the  bishop  made  his  entry,  none  of  the  regents 
would  join  the  procession,  not,  as  they  said,  on  account 
of  religion,  but  because  they  would  not  yield  the  prece- 
dence claimed  by  the  juge-mage.  Casaubon's  welcome 
was  unanimous.  He  was  conducted  by  this  troop  of 
honour  to  the  abode  prepared  for  him.  Several  days  were 
spent  in  receiving  the  calls  of  ceremony  or  friendship. 
But  he  was  less  impatient  of  this  sacrifice  of  time,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  because  his  books,  which  were  to  follow 
him  by  water  from  Lyon,  had  not  yet  arrived.    Seventy 

^  Cas.  epp.  109  and  115. 
G  2 

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84  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

years  later,  Edward  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas,  de- 
scribed the  population  of  MontpelHer  as  prepossessing 
in  their  manner  towards  strangers.  He  writes  (1664) ^ 
'This  place  is  the  most  dehghtful  of  all  France,  being 
seated  upon  a  hill  in  sight  of  the  sea,  inhabited  by  a  people 
the  most  handsome  in  the  world ;  the  meanest  of  them 
going  neatly  drest  every  day,  and  their  carriage  so  free, 
that  the  merest  stranger  hath  acquaintance  with  those  of 
the  best  rank  of  the  town  immediately.'  In  1597,  just 
emerging  from  the  passions  and  sufferings  of  a  religious 
war,  there  may  well  have  been  less  civility.  Yet  we  find 
a  hint  in  Casaubon's  letters  that  he  felt  he  was  no  longer 
in  the  rigid  atmosphere  of  Geneva.  Though  he  declares  ^ 
that  '  this  church  is  indeed  flourishing  in  piety  and  good 
works  if  any  is  so  in  France,'  yet  he  writes  to  Beza,  '  My 
wife,  I  assure  you,  arranges  her  life  in  such  a  way  that  all 
may  easily  see  that  she  was  born  at  Geneva,  and  brought 
up  in  the  church  there.  ^  The  style  of  living  is  very 
different  here.' 

What  gratifies  him  more  than  the  attentions  paid  him,  is 
the  discovery  that  the  city  furnished  no  small  number  of 
men  with  a  taste  for  classical  letters.  True,  civil  disorder 
and  religious  exaltation  had  been  unfavourable  to  study, 
and  the  standard  of  attainment  might  not  be  generally 
high.  But  the  professional  study  of  medicine  and  law 
was  not  then  pursued  in  the  technical  spirit  in  which  it  is 
now.  The  study  of  medicine  included  the  reading  of 
Hippocrates  and  Galen,  in  a  latin  version,  even  if  not  in 
the  original  greek.  Where  a  civil  lawyer  is,  there  the 
traditions  of  the  Roman  empire  can  never  be  wholly 
extinguished.  In  the  question  which  divided  the  legal 
profession  at  this  time,  viz.  whether  a  lawyer  should  be 

"^  Ap.  Sir  Thos.  Browne,  Works,  i.  70.  The  reader  of  Rabelais  will  recall 
Pantagruel's  experience  of  Montpellier,  Pantag.  a.  5 :  '  Oil  il  trouva  fort  bons 
vins  de  Mirevaulx,  et  joyeuse  compagnie.' 

"  Ep.  134. 

'  Ep.  114 :  '  Nam  hie  quidem  aliter  vivitur.' 

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I"-]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  85 

liberally  or  professionally  educated,  the  bar  at  Montpellier 
was  on  the  side  of  liberality  as  against  the  Bartholists. 
At  Geneva,  what  zeal  there  was  was  all  theological.     Beza 
had  not  ceased  to  value  classics,  but  had  ceased  to  read 
them.    The  Genevese  had  let  Pacius  and  Hotoman  go, 
and  Lect,  having  no  pupils  and  no  salary  any  longer,  had 
gone  in  for  council  business.    At  Montpellier,  Casaubon 
is  delighted  to  find  not  only  a  number  of  students  desirous 
to  learn,   but   public   officers,    civil  servants,   practising 
lawyers,  ^ '  taking  an  interest  in  our  literature.'     ^  '  Here  we 
have  to  do  not  with  boys,  no,  not  with  youths,  but  with 
men  of  mature  age.'    There  is  no  allusion  to  the  clerical 
order  as  furnishing  aspirants  of  classical  studies.     The 
catholic  clergy  were  engaged  in  a  struggle  for  existence, 
the  bishop  being  altogether  excluded  from  the  town,  and 
they  being  allowed  only  one  church,  '  la  canourge,'  for  the 
catholic  culte  ^.    When  the  bishop  did  succeed  in  edging 
himself  into  the  city,  in  November  of  this  year,  and  before 
he  was  formally  restored  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  he  was 
on  terms  of  civility  with  Casaubon.      Guitard  de  Ratte 
was  not  altogether  without  a  taste  for  letters,  and  had 
books  dedicated  to  him,  but  by  men  of  a  bad  stamp,  e.g. 
Theodorus  MarciUus,  and  John  a  Wouveren.    The  cal- 
vinist  ministers  of  Montpellier,  however  respectable  for 
their  piety,  had  as  little  taste  for  secular  learning  as  those 
of  Geneva.    Jean  Gigord  was  the  principal  pastor,  and  is 
called  by  Casaubon  '*a  genuine  theologian.'     He  lectured 
on  theology  in  the  calvinist  provincial  seminary.    And  the 
synod  of  Languedoc,  which  had  met  at  Montpellier  in  the 
preceding  August,  had  voted  him  a  small  sum  for  the  for- 
mation of  a  library^.     But  the  books  were  theological. 

'  Ep.  Ill :   '  Nostrarum  literarum  percupidi.'  ^  Ep.  123. 

^  M^m.  de  I'Acad.  des  Sciences  de  Montp.  3. 

*  'yvijaios  theologus,'  Ephem.  p.  130. 

'  Gigord  writes  to  Casaubon  to  lay  out  part  of  his  money  for  him  at  Geneva. 
Burney  mss.  376.  p.  125  :  '  Je  vous  prie  sur  tout  de  me  faire  reconvrer  les  livres, 
desquels  vous  verrez  le  roUe  et  aviser  au  prix.'  Even  the  ordi:i:'i'y  theological 
books  were  not  to  be  got  at  Montpellier. 

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86  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Gigord  was  also  one  of  the  eight  members  of  the  board  of 
studies.  But  he  was  there  to  represent  the  church,  not 
learning.  It  would  have  been  thought  an  impropriety  in 
a  minister  of  the  reformed  churches  to  have  been  known 
to  devote  any  part  of  his  time  to  secular  studies.  His 
attitude  towards  them  differed  from  that  of  the  catholic 
priest,  secular  or  regular.  The  priest  of  this  generation 
feared  and  hated  learning.  The  reformed  minister 
approved  it  for  others,  as  education,  as  discipline,  but 
would  have  been  ashamed  to  have  owned  to  it  himself. 
In  the  course  of  the  next  century  the  tide  began  to  turn ; 
the  education  of  the  French  priest  improved,  that  of  the 
average  pastor  deteriorated.  To  this  contrast  certainly 
eminent  exceptions  can  be  at  once  quoted.  Even  in 
Casaubon's  time,  1597,  the  other  ministers  at  Montpellier 
were  of  a  grade  of  intellect  below  Gigord.  Casaubon 
tells  us  ^  of  a  young  minister,  he  does  not  name  him,  who 
inveighed  in  his  sermon  against  the  practice  of  those 
preachers,  who  uncovered  the  head  whenever  they  had 
occasion  to  mention  the  divine  name.  On  coming  out 
of  church,  Casaubon  ventured  to  tell  the  youth  that 
this  was  the  practice  of  all  the  reformed  churches  in 
Germany  and  Switzerland ;  to  which  the  young  zealot 
replied  that  '  he  anathematised  all  those  churches.'  '  He 
was  one  of  those,'  observes  Casaubon,  '  who  believe  them- 
selves gifted  with  all  wisdom  and  all  knowledge  to  begin 
with.'  Such  men  of  the  true  puritan  stamp,  divinely  en- 
lightened, contemners  of  human  learning,  might  be  found 
among  the  ministers  of  that  day.  But  the  management  of 
the  reformed  churches  was  in  better  hands.  Literature 
was  respected.  But  the  respect  paid  it  was  made  up 
mainly  of  a  sense  of  its  utility  in  controversy,  in  a  less 
degree  of  a  perception,  never  wholly  wanting,  of  its  intrinsic 
worth.  Casaubon,  though  not  an  official  deputy,  was 
invited  to  be  present,  as  '  amicus  curiae,'  at  the  national 

'  Ephem.  pp.  120.  113. 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  87 

synod  held  at  Montpellier  in  August,  1598.  The  ministers 
patronised  or  tolerated  him.  He  did  not  even  assume  to 
be  on  equal  terms.  He  writes  in  1597  to  the  synod  of 
Sauve,  excusing  himself  from  attending  on  account  of 
illness,  but  begging  the  'fathers'  to  direct  his  humble 
services  to  the  benefit  of  the  church,  and  assuring  them 
that  it  was  his  particular  wish -to  be  of  use  to  the  students 
of  theology,  i.e.  in  the  calvinist  seminary  at  MontpelHer^ 
He  once  went  so  far  as  to  say^ — but  this  was  to  Beza — 
after  proposing  his  own  interpretation  of  Matth.  28.  17, 
'  but  be  assured  that  I  shall  finally  acquiesce  in  that  mean- 
ing which  you  shall  decide  to  be  the  true  meaning.' 

That  the  friends  found  at  Montpellier  were  numerous,  is 
evident  from  the  diary,  where  their  visits  are  recorded,  and 
lamented.  But  the  names  are  seldom  given.  Only  three 
recur  often  for  mention  :  W.  Ranchin,  already  spoken  of  ; 
Sarrasin,  a  medical  professor,  who  published  Dioscorides 
in  1598;  and  Canaye  de  Fresne,  who  lived  not  at  Mont- 
pellier, but  at  Carcassonne.  To  him  Casaubon  paid  his 
first  visit,  through  the  storms  and  snows  of  January,  and 
took  his  advice  as  to  the  character  he  should  impress  upon 
his  teaching. 

It  was  on  his  return  from  this  visit  to  de  Fresne  that  he 
began  the  '  Ephemerides.'  On  his  38th  birthday,  being 
February  18  (=8),  1597,  he  resolved,  as  many  literary  men 
have  resolved,  to  keep  a  diary.  But  he  continued  to  keep 
it  with  the  same  perseverance  which  he  carried  into  every- 
thing, daily,  till  within  a  fortnight  of  his  death  in  1614.  It 
is  literally  '  nulla  dies  sine  linea.'  I  recollect  but  one 
other  example  of  such  regularity,  that  of  Joseph  Priestley, 
who  began  to  keep  a  diary  of  his  studies,  set.  22,  and  con- 
tinued it  till  within  three  or  four  days  of  his  death,  set.  71. 
Casaubon  never  omitted  in  his  many  illnesses,  hardly  on 
his  various  journeys,  a  single  day.  When  he  travels,  the 
current  volume  accompanies  him  upon  the  sumpter-horse, 

1  Ep.  136.  ^  Ep.  131. 

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88  ISAAC  CASAUBON,  [Sect. 

and  he  makes  a  note,  however  brief,  of  the  spent  day,  in 
ink,  which  he  takes  also  with  him.  On  one  occasion, 
having  left  it  behind  him,  when  he  went  out  of  Paris  for 
the  night,  his  wife  makes  the  entry  in  his  stead  :  '  23  fev. 
1601 :  ce  jour  dit  M.  Casaubon  a  este  absent,  que  Dieu 
garde,  et  moi,  et  les  nostres  avec  lui,  Amen.'  The 
daughter  of  Henri  Estienne  had  forgotten  the  latin  once 
so  familiar  in  her  grandfather's  house,  and  she  makes  her 
entry  in  the  vernacular^.  Casaubon  himself  employs 
uniformly  latin,  but  thickly  interspersed  with  greek  words, 
even  occasionally  with  greek  sentences.  He  could  ex- 
press himself  with  almost  equal  facility  in  the  one 
language  as  in  the  other.  He  was  once  asked  by  a  Greek, 
who  professed  to  be  a  descendant  of  Lascaris,  to  turn  a 
petition  for  him  from  latin  into  greek.  He  did  it  at  once, 
off  hand  ^.  He  never  required  a  lexicon  ^.  Cardinal  du 
Perron,  the  earliest  French  pulpit  orator,  said  of  him, 
* '  When  Casaubon  talks  french,  he  talks  like  a  peasant ; 
but  when  latin,  he  speaks  it  like  his  mother  tongue.  He 
has  neglected  the  one,  and  thrown  all  his  mind  into  the 
other.'  The  latin  of  Casaubon  in  his  diary,  and  his  letters, 
is  the  latin  of  a  master  of  the  language  in  its  resources 
and  its  idiom.  But  it  is  wanting  in  character,  and  though 
■far  above  the  vapid  theme-latin  of  the  Ciceronian  imi- 
tators, it  has  not  the  verve  and  pungency  of  Scaliger's 
style. 

The  Ephemerides  extend  from  February  18,  1597,  to 
June  16,  1614.  On  July  i,  1614,  Casaubon  died.  A 
journal  so  regular  is  rarely  written,  and,  when  written,  is 
too  often  lost  to  history  through  the  jealousy  or  weakness 
of  relatives  or  executors.     In  Priestley's  case  the  diary 

'  Isaac's  letters  to  Mad".  Casaubon  are  always  in  french.  On  one  occasion 
she  opened  a  letter  from  her  son  John,  which  arrived  in  Isaac's  absence,  and 
could  not  read  it  because  it  was  in  latin.  Ep.  757  :  '  Quas  ilia  pro  sue  jure 
aperuerat,  sed,  quia  latine  erant  scripts,  parum  intellexerat.' 

2  Eph.  p.  228.  3  Scaligerana  a».  p.  45. 

*  Perroniana,  p.  128. 


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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  89 

shared  the  fate  of  all  his  collections,  and  became  the 
victim  of  the  savages  of  one  of  our  great  cities.  We  owe 
the  preservation  of  this  precious  record  of  the  seventeenth 
century  to  the  piety  of  Mad^  Casaubon  and  her  son 
Meric.  Meric,  who  was  prebendary  of  Canterbury,  de- 
posited, before  his  death  in  1671,  in  the  chapter  library 
of  that  cathedral,  the  six  fasciculi  which  he  had  inherited. 
For  of  seven  volumes  which  Isaac  had  written,  one,  the 
fourth,  containing  the  entries  of  three  years  and  six 
months,  viz.  from  January  i,  1604,  to  July  21,  1607,  was 
lost,  at  what  period  is  not  known  ^  The  ms.  had  been 
consulted  where  it  was  deposited  by  various  persons. 
Batteley,  archdeacon  and  prebendary  of  Canterbury, 
supplied  a  copy  of  the  material  parts  of  the  Ephemerides 
to  Janssen  Van  Almeloveen,  who  used  them  in  writing  the 
'Vita  Casauboni,'  which  he  prefixed  to  his  magnificent 
edition  of  the  letters.  At  last,  Dr.  Russell,  another  pre- 
bendary of  Canterbury,  transcribed  the  whole  ms.  and 
prevailed  upon  the  managers  of  the  Clarendon  press  to 
print  it,  in  the  year  1850.  The  faithful  accuracy  of  an 
editor  who  religiously  gave  every  word  of  his  ms,  where 
there  was  so  much  temptation  to  excerpt,  deserves  com- 
memoration. In  other  respects,  Dr.  Russell  fulfilled  none 
of  the  duties  of  editor.  He  did  not  explain  one  of  the 
many  difficulties,  or  clear  up  a  single  obscurity  in  the 
names  mentioned,  or  the  facts  alluded  to,  by  the  diarist. 
He  did  far  less  for  Casaubon's  memory  than  Almeloveen, 
the  Dutch  editor  of  the  letters,  had  done  150  years 
before. 

No   form  of  autobiography  is  calculated  to  be  more 

'  Adversaria,  torn.  22,  has  an  entry  written  by  James  Casaubon  at  Marie's 
dictation,  Jan.  9,  1639 :  '  Ephemerides  ab  anno  vitae  39  incipiente,  qui  erat  a 
Christo  1597,  sunt  omnino  sex  scapi  separatim,  aut  tot  saltern  penes  me  sunt, 
nam  deest  quartus,  qui  tempus  annorum  4  ab  a.d.  1603  usque  ad  1607  com- 
plectebatur.  Jam  et  ante  statim  a  patris  obitu  desideratum  fuisse  scapum  unum, 
testis  est  fratris  Joannis  epistola  super  ea  re  ad  me  scripta  matris  nomine,  haud 
multo  post  adventum  meum  Oxoniam.' 

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90  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

popular  than  a  private  journal.  But  the  interest  of 
Casaubon's  Ephemerides  suffers  a  heavy  abatement  from 
three  causes.  First,  it  is  written  in  latin;  secondly,  it 
does  not  concern  itself  with  events  of  public  interest ;  and 
lastly,  it  is  surcharged  with  the  language  of  devotion. 

A  scholar's  life  is  seldom  one  of  incident,  and  his  annals 
can  have  little  else  to  tell  than  what  he  reads  and  writes. 
Casaubon  records  what  he  read  day  by  day,  but  does  not 
mix  remarks  of  his  own  upon  it.  These  were  reserved 
for  the  margins,  or  blank  leaves,  of  his  books,  or  thrown 
upon  loose  sheets  of  paper  without  order.  Sixty  volumes 
of  such  Adversaria  are  still  kept  in  existence,  which  have 
been  made  by  binding  these  sheets  together.  In  a  few 
instances  he  has  extracted  into  the  Ephemerides  a  passage 
which  struck  him,  and  which  he  wished  to  dwell  upon, 
sometimes  in  greek,  occasionally  a  hebrew  text.  Such 
extracts  have  mostly  a  devout,  not  a  philological,  purpose. 
He  does  not,  like  Fynes  Clinton,  record  how  many  pages, 
but  how  many  hours,  he  read.  Besides  this  timekeeping 
of  the  daily  task,  the  journal  notices,  but  with  great 
brevity,  and  as  secondary  matter,  his  family  affairs,  visits, 
journeys,  letters,  conversations,  descending  even  to  his 
expenditure, — all  indicated  with  the  brevity  of  a  time- 
saving  man,  so  that  an  8vo  page  of  print  seldom  contains 
less  than  three  days,  often  a  week  or  more.  Public  events 
are  Httle  noticed,  the  chief  exception  being  the  Fontaine- 
bleau  conference,  which  fills  seven  pages.  The  assassi- 
nation of  Henry  iv,  the  most  memorable  occurrence  of  the 
period,  scarcely  takes  a  page,  and  that  contains  no  parti- 
culars, but  is  a  commonplace  lament  and  prayer  on  the 
occasion.  His  wife's  confinement  takes  two  pages,  but 
with  the  same  proportion  of  prayer  and  thanksgiving.  Of 
the  whole  diary  it  may  be  computed  that  no  less  than  one 
third  is  occupied  with  these  Utanies.  That  such  pious 
aspirations  should  continually  ascend  to  heaven,  from  the 
devout  soul  of  Casaubon,  can  be  no  matter  of  regret. 

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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  91 

But  it  must  be  permitted  us  to  wish  that  he  had  not 
thought  it  necessary  to  write  them  down,  and  so  fill  his 
pages  with  mere  repetition,  to  the  exclusion  of  more  inter- 
esting matters.  One  observation  may  be  made  on  the 
outpourings  of  prayer  and  praise.  They  attest  the  pure 
and  simple-minded  character  of  the  man.  Here  is  no  taint 
of  cant ;  not  the  faintest  suggestion  of  that  unsoundness 
or  insincerity  which  seldom  fails  to  attend  the  pubHc 
parade  of  the  language  of  devotion.  We  feel  that  we  have 
surprised  Casaubon  on  his  knees  alone  in  his  closet.  He 
does  not  write  so,  not  even  in  his  most  familiar  letters ; 
he  did  not  talk  so  in  his  ordinary  conversation.  Nothing 
but  a  heart  overflowing  with  rehgious  feeling  could  have 
prompted  a  passionate  student,  so  jealous  of  his  moments, 
to  write  and  re-write  the  refrain  of  the  same  ejaculation. 

If  we  are  tempted  to  turn  away  from  Casaubon's  journal 
in  disappointment  at  its  barrenness  of  events,  we  must 
remember  that  it  was  undertaken  by  him  with  one  special 
object  in  view.  It  was  not  written,  like  the  contemporary 
'  Registre-journal '  of  Pierre  Lestoile,  for  the  instruction  of 
posterity ;  not  even  of  his  own  family.  Casaubon  had  no 
autobiographical  purpose  in  view.  He  thus  states  his 
own  motive  in  opening  the  diary.  ^ '  The  expenditure  of 
time  being  the  most  costly  of  all  those  we  make,  and  con- 
sidering the  truth  of  what  is  said  by  the  latin  stoic  that 
"there  is  one  reputable  kind  of  avarice,  viz.  to  be  ava- 
ricious of  our  time,"  I  have  this  day  resolved  to  begin  this 
record  of  my  time,  in  order  that  I  may  have  by  me  an 
account  of  my  spending  so  precious  a  commodity.  Thus, 
when  I  look  back,  if  any  of  it  hath  been  well  laid  out,  I 
may  rejoice  and  give  almighty  God  thanks  for  his  grace ; 
if  again  any  of  it  hath  been  idle  or  ill  spent,  I  may  be 
aware  thereof,  and  know  my  fault  or  misfortune  therein.' 
This  purpose  of  noting  how  the  time  goes  is  the  para- 
mount purpose   of  the  Ephemerides.     If  we  find  them 

'  Ephem.  p.  i. 

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93  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

more  barren  of  events  than  we  could  wish,  we  must  call 
to  mind  that  they  were  not  destined  to  be  a  record  of 
events,  but  a  register  of  time.  Casaubon  anxiously  com- 
pares the  hours  spent  in  his  study  with  those  bestowed 
on  any  other  occupation.  Unless  the  first  greatly  pre- 
ponderate, he  is  unhappy.  When  the  claims  of  business 
or  society  have  taken  up  any  considerable  part  of  the  day, 
his  outcries  are  those  of  a  man  who  is  being  robbed; 
When  he  has  read  continuously  a  whole  day,  from  early 
morning  till  late  at  night,  '  noctem  addens  operi,'  he  enters 
a  satisfactory  '  to-day,  I  have  truly  lived,'  '  hodie  vixi.' 
Taking  some  entries  of  the  first  period,  we  have  such  as 
the  following : — 

'  To-day  I  began  my  work  very  early  in  the  morning, 
notwithstanding  my  having  kept  it  up  last  night  till  very 
late.' 

'  Nearly  the  whole  morning,  and  quite  all  the  afternoon 
perished,  through  writing  letters.  Oh !  heavy  loss,  more 
lamentable  than  loss  of  money ! ' 

'To-day  I  got  six  hours  for  study.  When  shall  I  get 
my  whole  day  ?  Whenever,  O  my  Father,  it  shall  be  thy 
will ! ' 

'  This  morning  not  to  my  books  till  7  o'clock  or  after ; 
alas  me !  and  after  that  the  whole  morning  lost ;  nay,  the 
whole  day.  O  God  of  my  salvation,  aid  my  studies,  without 
which  life  is  to  me  not  life.' 

'  This  morning,  reading,  but  not  without  interruption. 
After  dinner,  however,  as  if  they  had  conspired  the 
destruction  of  my  studies,  friends  came  and  broke  them 
off.' 

'This  morning  a  good  spell  of  study.  After  dinner 
friends,  and  trifling  talk,  but  very  bothering ;  at  last  got 
back  to  my  books.' 

'To-day,  though  far  from  well,  got  eight  hours  for  my 
books.' 

Such  is  the  general  character  of  the  entries  during  the 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  93 

first  period.    The  simple  '  studuimus  et  viximus '  is  the 
short  expression  of  the  feeling  of  this  time. 

The  sociable  disposition  of  the  people  of  Montpellier 
caused  him  grievous  trials.  Morning  visiting  was  the 
mode  of  the  place ;  not  calls  of  ceremony,  but  '  dropping 
in'  to  have  a  chat.  Casaubon  was  liked  for  himself,  as 
well  as  respected  for  his  learning.  He,  too,  could  talk, 
though  his  french  were  french  of  Geneva.  Serious  talk 
with  well-informed  persons  he  does  not  regard  as  time  ill 
spent.  For  a  tete-a-tfite  with  Ranchin  or  de  Fresne,  with 
Sarrasin  or  Serres,  persons  more  or  less  behind  the 
scenes  of  the  public  drama ;  to  lament  the  gloomy 
prospects  of  the  reformed  churches,  the  backsliding  of 
Henry  iv,  the  rapid  strides  of  the  Jesuits,  to  hear  of  the  last 
new  conversion  at  court, — for  this  he  is  ever  ready.  Nor 
was  he  altogether  insensible  to  the  allurements  of  ordinary 
companionship.  He  is  not  unwilling  to  gossip  with  the 
gossips.  But  these  Montpellier  neighbours  know  no 
seasons.  They  come  at  all  hours,  they  stay,  unconscious 
of  the  lapse  of  minutes.  Casaubon  sits  there  fretting, 
watching  the  clock,  wishing  them  gone,  with  his  thoughts 
on  that  1 '  last  wretched  page '  of  his  animadversions  on 
Athenaeus,  still  unwritten.  Oh!  'the  friends,  how  little 
friendly ! ' — amici  quam  parum  amici — ^who  come  between 
him  and  his  books.  Is  it  suggested  he  might  shut  them 
out?  How  is  he  to  shut  them  out,  when  he  has  only  two 
rooms,  an  inner  and  an  outer,  a  sitting-room  and  a  bed- 
room ?  All  his  study  has  to  be  done  in  the  one  room  in 
which  the  family  live.  What  a  power  of  abstraction  must 
be  required  even  to  follow  a  book,  and  how  entirely  must 
be  wanting  '  the  blessings  of  contemplation  in  that  sweet 
solitariness,  which  collecteth  the  mind,  as  shutting  the  eyes 
does  the  sight ! '  (Bacon).  His  resource  against  the  plague 
of  friends  is  to  take  the  early  morning,  and  the  late  night, 

'  Ephem.  p.  69 :  '  Ilia  pagina  misella.' 

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94  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

hours.  But  I  can  find  no  authority  for  the  statement  of 
the  biographers,  that  he  bathed  his  eyes  with  vinegar  to 
keep  them  open.  The  'legende  erudite'  has  done  Httle 
to  embelhsh  Casaubon's  Hfe,  for  this  is  almost  the  only 
exception  ^.  He  has  no  space  to  set  out  his  books  on 
shelves.  In  time  he  gets  into  a  more  roomy  abode,  but 
the  repeated  removals  have  introduced  chaos  into  his 
books  and  papers.  The  time  lost  in  searching  for  a  mis- 
sing volume  is  so  grievous,  that  it  is  matter  of  entry  in 
the  diary,  with  thanksgiving  when  found  ^.  We  cannot 
wonder  that  in  such  a  menage  Florence  Casaubon  should 
sometimes  lose  her  good  temper,  wish  that  her  husband 
could  find  a  little  time  to  attend  to  his  affairs,  or  even  hint 
that  he  might  be  a  little  more  companionable.  This  was 
the  severest  of  all  his  trials.  For  even  in  his  new  house, 
where  he  had  a  private  study  up-stairs,  Mad^  Casaubon 
was  not  to  be  excluded  ^-  So  tender  is  Casaubon's  feeling, 
that  even  in  his  private  diary  he  does  not  name  her  when 
he  alludes  to  *  '  this  domestic  hindrance  to  my  studies.' 
A  true  and  loving  helpmate  she  was  to  him,  as  he  always 
confesses,  and  on  the  whole  really  promoted  his  studious 
abstraction,  by  relieving  him  of  all  household  cares. 
When  she  is  away  from  him  he  is  helpless  in  these 
matters  as  a  child.  ^ '  Deliver  me,  my  heavenly  Father, 
from  these  miseries,  which  the  absence  of  my  wife,  and 
the  management  of  my  household,  create  for  me.     Not 

'  I  find  no  other  authority  for  this  than  the  latin  life  of  Van  Almeloveen, 
p.  73:  '  Aiunt  Casaubonum,  ne  concubia  nocte  somno  corriperetur,  oculis 
infudisse  acetum.'  Almeloveen  gives  us  himself  the  source  from  which  he  drew 
the  statement,  and  the  means  of  refuting  it.  He  quotes  '  Moyse  Amyraut 
Morale  chretienne.'  But  what  Amyraut  says  is,  not  that  Casaubon  used  vinegar 
but  that  some  one,  unnamed,  who  wished,  like  Casaubon,  to  study  through  the 
night,  bathed  his  eyes  with  vinegar.  '  Celuy  qui,  pour  imiter  Casaubon,  qui 
estudioit  la  plus  grande  partie  de  la  nuit,  se  mettoit  du  vinaigre  dans  las  yeux 
pour  en  chasser  le  sommeil,  monstroit  bien  qu'il  avoit  de  la  gdnSrosit^  et  une 
grande  affection  pour  les  lettres.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  82. 

^  Ephem.  p.  18 :  '  Inter  turbas  domesticas  lectio  aliquot  horarum.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  42.  5  Ephem.  p.  998. 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  95 

being  used  to  keep  our  accounts,  I  am  perfectly  aghast 
when  I  see  the  expenditure  of  this  family.' 

It  might  have  been  better  if  she  had  disturbed  him 
oftener.  His  life  might  have  been  prolonged  some  years, 
if  she  had  more  often  routed  him  from  his  desk,  and  driven 
him  into  the  air.  For  in  these  years  he  was  laying  the 
seeds  of  disease,  and  preparing  his  early  grave.  He  had 
timely  warning  of  his  fate.  Serious  and  repeated  attacks 
prostrated  him  in  1597  and  '98,  of  relaxation  of,  and 
discharge  from,  the  mucous  lining  of  the  air  passages. 
These  attacks  were  attended  with  violent  fever,  and 
had  for  sequel  a  languor  of  body  and  mind,  which 
occasioned  a  further  wrench,  when  he  dragged  himself 
back  to  work  in  spite  of  it.  They  were  the  first  of  a 
series,  which  harassed  him  all  the  remainder  of  his  life — 
the  beginning  of  the  end. 

This  presentiment — that  his  space  of  life  would  be 
curtailed — haunted  him  already,  and  served  to  augment 
the  fever  of  work  which  consumed  him.  He  doles  out  his 
hours  as  one  who  knows  they  are  counted,  yet  he  is  but 
thirty-seven.  Six  a.m.  was  a  late  hour  for  him  to  enter 
his  study ;  5  a.m.  is  more  usual.  He  is  not  rarely  later. 
'  Mane  diei  meUor  pars,'  was  his  maxim.  As  with  all 
persons  of  weak  constitution,  his  working  powers  were 
freshest  in  the  morning,  and  flagged  as  the  day  went  on. 
But  hours,  which  seem  to  us  incredibly  early,  were  the 
rule  in  the  schools  of  France.  Henri  de  Mesmes  de- 
scribes himself  as  going  to  school  at  5  a.m.,  ^ '  with  our 
big  books  under  our  arms,  our  portfolios  and  lanterns  in 
our  hands.' 

On  reaching  his  study,  his  first  act  is  one  of  devotion  on 
his  knees.     Unless  specially  busied  otherwise,  he  takes 

1  Mdm.  de  Henri  de  Mesmes,  ap.  RoUin,  Traits  des  ftudes,  i ;  '  Nous  etions 
debout  a  quatre  heures,  et  ayant  prie  Dieu,  alliens  a  cinq  heures  aux  estudes, 
nos  gros  livres  sous  le  bras,  nos  escritoires  et  nos  chandeliers  a  la  main.'  This 
was  at  Toulouse,  in  1545.  Even  in  Paris,  where  hours  were  later,  6  a.m.  was 
the  hour  for  the  greek  class  in  the  Jesuit  college  of  Clermont. 

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g6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the   first  half-hour  for  religious   reading,   often    of   the 
hebrew  scriptures.     Then    the  author   he   has   in   hand 
occupies  him  till  the  dinner  hour.     This  was  in  schools, 
universities,  and  burgher  life,  generally  at  lo  a.m.     The 
court  dined  late,  at  12,  or  even  as  late  as  i  on  hunting 
days.     After  dinner,  he  spends  some  hours  in  preparing 
for  his  lecture,  which  was  at  4  p.m.     An  hour,  four  days 
per  week,  is  his  prescribed  duty.     But  after  the  end  of 
the  first  nine  months,  he  adds,  as  a  voluntary,  a  greek 
elementary  class.    After  lecture,  friends,  supper,  and  then 
to  books  again,  if  friends  will  only  go  away  in  good  time. 
Saturday  was  given  up  to  the  disputations ;  Wednesday 
was  a  holiday.     The  usual  holiday  in  the  schools  and  uni- 
versities was  Thursday.     In  the  medical  school  of  Mont- 
pellier,    exceptionally,    the    day    was    Wednesday,    dies 
Mercurii,  there  styled  'jour  d'Hippocrate,'  and  the  other 
faculties  conformed  to  the  practice  of  the  leading  faculty. 
On  Sundays,  an  attendance  on  two  sermons  was  expected 
by  public  opinion,  and  sanctioned  by  custom,  though  it 
was  not  a  statutable  duty.     This  was  the  case  also  with 
the  Wednesday  morning  sermon,  to  which  the  boys  in  the 
lower  school  were  taken  by  their  regents,  and  catechised 
afterwards.     When  Gigord  or  Serres  was  the  preacher, 
Casaubon  would  not  find  it  so  hard  to  quit  Chrysostom 
or  Basil,  at  8  and  at  12  (these  were  the  hours);  but  on 
ordinary  days  an   hour's   discourse   must   have   been   a 
heavy  burden,   when   the  pastors  were  such  as  he  de- 
scribes.    ^ '  One,  very  aged,  and  hence,  without  his  own 
fault,  lethargic,  the   other  a   mere  youth,   quite  unequal 
to  the  post  of  first  pastor  in  such  a  large  congregation.' 
Heylin,  writing  in  1625,  says  of  the  reformed  preachers : 
^ '  Their  sermons  are  very  plain  and  home-spun,  little  in 
them  of  the  fathers,  and  less  of  human  learning,  it  being 
concluded  in  the  Synod  of  Gappe  that  only  the  scriptures 
should  be  used  in  their  pulpits.    They  consist  much  of 

^  Ep.  174.  '  Heylin,  Travels,  p.  lao. 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  97 

exhortation  and  use,  and  of  nothing  in  a  manner  which 
concerneth  knowledge;  a  ready  way  to  raise  up  and 
edify  the  will  and  affection,  but  withal  to  starve  the  under- 
standing.' 

Though  Sunday  is  a  public  holiday,  Casaubon  does  not 
allow  himself  one.  He  marks  it  by  reading  some  theo- 
logical book,  often  one  of  the  fathers.  But  after  a  spell 
of  this  reading,  he  turns  to  his  task  of  every  day.  This, 
too,  is  his  day  for  writing  letters.  The  Scotch  '  sabbath ' 
was  unknown  to  the  French  reformed  churches  of  the 
i6th  century,  as  it  was  to  the  catholics.  The  faculties 
kept  holiday,  but  the  disputations  of  the  surgeons  and 
apothecaries,  both  at  Montpellier  and  Lyon,  were  held 
on  the  Sunday.  Sometimes,  but  very  sparingly,  he  takes 
a  walk  beyond  the  walls  on  a  holiday  to  visit  a  friend's 
country  villa,  or  down  to  the  sea,  to  look  at  the  ruins  of 
Maguelonne.  There  are  three  regular  vacations  in  the 
year  of  three  or  four  weeks  each — at  Christmas,  at  Easter, 
and  in  July-August.  In  these  he  makes  his  more  distant 
visits.  His  first  was  to  de  Fresne;  the  summer  vacation 
of  1597  he  devotes  to  a  visit  to  his  mother  at  Die  (dep. 
Drome).  The  summer  of  1598  affords  a  much  longer 
excursion  to  Lyon  and  Paris,  after  which  he  is  surprised 
to  find  how  improved  his  health  is.  In  November,  1598, 
but  after  he  had  ceased  to  act  as  professor,  he  goes  again 
to  stay  with  de  Fresne,  who  is  now  established  at  Castres, 
(dep.  Tarn,)  as  protestant  president  of  the  chambre  mi- 
partie  of  Languedoc.  He  spares  an  occasional  hour  to  be 
present  at  the  medical  disputations,  or  at  a  dissection.  Once 
he  goes  to  the  disputations  of  the  surgeons.  Nor  does 
he  quit  Montpellier  without  having  witnessed  the  sight 
of  the  place— the  manufacture  of  the  popular  electuary, 
kermfes,  which,   says   the   German    Sincerus,  ^'no  one 

'  Jodocus  Sincerus,  Itinerarium  Galliae,  1627,  p.  160 :  '  Nolim  hinc  moveas 
non  visa  prius  electuarii  Alkermes  confectione.'  The  alkermes  was  a  popular 
stomachic  electuary,  prepared  from  the  kermis,  an  oak-gall  gathered  in  Langue- 
doc, Spain,  and  Portugal. 

H 

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98  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

should  quit  Montpellier  without  going  to  see.'  He  was 
appointed  rector  of  the  faculty  of  arts,  for  the  scholar  year 
1597 ;  held  the  office  again  for  a  short  time  in  1599  in  the 
absence  of  the  rector,  and  found  it  greatly  troublesome 
and  time-devouring. 

When  rector  or  not,  no  one  at  Montpelher  was  likely 
to  interfere  with  his  choice  of  subjects  of  lecture.  This 
choice  was  guided  by  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that  his 
audience  consisted  largely  of  men  past  pupilage.  Just 
about  1597  there  was  a  short  reaction  against  the  bar- 
barism produced  by  the  civil  war.  Men  turned  again  with 
eagerness  to  the  reopened  source  of  ancient  learning. 
Even  in  the  worst  times  there  had  not  wanted  lovers  of 
good  books.  The  tradition  of  literature  still  lingered 
among  the  members  of  the  French  bar.  Toulouse  was, 
perhaps,  the  most  fanatical  city  in  the  kingdom,  yet  in  the 
parlement  of  Languedoc,  now  again  restored  to  Toulouse, 
were  not  a  few  men  who  rose  above  the  political  passion 
of  the  day.  Pierre  Du  Faur,  Sieur  de  Sanjorry,  first 
president,  had  a  fine  collection  of  books,  and  had  written 
on  law.  A  catholic,  but  not  a  leaguer,  he  sent  Casaubon 
a  message  of  civility  through  de  Fresne,  to  which  Casau- 
bon replied  by  claiming  his  friendship  and  patronage,  and 
calling  him  the  Varro  of  his  age,  This  might  pass  as  a 
complimentary  flourish,  were  it  not  confirmed  by  Sca- 
liger's  mention  of  him  as  one  of  France's  learned  men, 
though  he  adds  that  his  books  were  only  compilations,  a 
failing  not  uncommon  among  book-collectors^.  Another 
member  of  the  same  court,  and  president  a  mortier  in  it, 
Ciron,  followed,  as  collector,  the  footsteps  of  his  chief. 
Jacques  de  Maussac,  father  of  the  editor  of  Harpocration, 
makes  a  third  learned  library  at  Toulouse.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  the  example  of  the  supreme  court  should  have 

^  Scaliger".  2''.  p.  81  :  '  Ce  n'est  qu'un  amasseur,  il  ne  juge  rien.'  Pierre 
Du  Faur  is  cited  by  Grotius,  De  Jure  Belli,  2.  16.  i,  as  '  eminentissimae  erudi- 
tionis  Petrus  Faber.' 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  99 

been  without  influence  on  the  province.  Accordingly,  at 
MontpeUier,  there  was  a  rush  to  Casaubon's  lecture-room, 
not  only  of  younger  members  of  the  bar,  but  even  of  the 
law  professors,  and  more  than  one  of  the  presiding  judges 
in  the  various  courts.  Men  whose  heads  were  grey, 
president  Philip,  'optimus  et  doctissimus  senex;'  M.  de 
Massilon,  '  vere  eruditus  et  nostras  litteras  callens,'  were 
occasionally  present.  If  any  stranger  of  distinction 
passed  by  MontpeUier,  one  of  the  amusements  provided 
for  him  was  to  hear  Casaubon.  The  hour  assigned  to 
Casaubon  was  the  hour  of  honour,  4  p.m.,  the  latest  hour 
in  the  academical  day,  in  order  to  allow  this  class  of  pro- 
fessional men  the  opportunity  of  attending  after  their 
business  was  over.  Grynaeus,  writing  from  Bale,  in  1584, 
says,  ^ '  I  have  been  induced  by  my  curators  to  institute  a 
lecture  on  history  twice  a  week.  It  will  be  at  an  hour  at 
which  the  professional  and  business  men  can  spare  a 
little  time  for  the  good  of  their  minds,  viz.  4  p.m.'  Men 
with  these  tastes  were  to  be  found,  but  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  they  abounded.  The  French  noblesse, 
especially  the  haute  noblesse,  were,  as  a  body,  illiterate, 
and  gloried  in  being  so.  The  constable  Montmorency 
could  not  sign  his  name. 

Nor  in  Italy,  where  (Rome  excepted)  culture  was  more 
widely  diffused,  especially  in  ecclesiastical  circles,  than  in 
France,  were  things  otherwise.  Paolo  Gualdo,  writing 
in  1604,  apologises  for  his  own  tastes,  ^ '  I  know  there  are 
not  wanting  persons  who  think  these  studies  ridiculous.' 
At  Rome  ambition  had  not  only  extinguished  learning, 
but  created  a  hatred  of  it.  Seguier  writes  to  de  Thou : 
'Anything  composed  in  classical  latin  is  suspected  at 
Rome  of  impiety.' 

The  subjects  chosen  by  Casaubon  for  his  lectures 
during  his  profession  at  MontpeUier  were  as  foUows  : — 

I.  An  Account  of  the  administration  and  officers  of  the 

I  Grynsus,  Epp.  p.  loi.  "  Vita  Pinelli,  p.  330. 

H   2 

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lOO  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Roman  republic.  2.  A  Synopsis  of  Roman  history.  3. 
The  Laws  of  the  xii  Tables.  4.  The  citations  in  the 
Digest  from  Ulpianus  on  the  subject  of  dress  ^.  5.  Persius. 
6.  Plautus,  Captivi.  7.  The  Physician's  oath  ("OpKos)  of 
Hippocrates.    8.  Aristotle's  Ethics. 

These  were  all  the  subjects  of  his  pubhc  lectures,  and 
they  seem  certainly  enough  to  occupy  a  year  and  a  half  at 
four  days  a  week,  with  three  months'  vacation  in  the  year. 

The  adaptation  of  these  courses  to  the  audience  he 
found  at  Montpelher  is  unmistakable.  There  is  only  one 
of  them  all,  viz.  the  Plautus,  which  must  have  been  a 
purely  philological,  or  language,  lecture.  And  this  was 
the  only  one  which  was  not  chosen  by  himself,  but  was 
taken  at  the  request  of  his  class  ^.  In  the  selection  of  i, 
2,  3,  and  4,  the  men  of  the  robe,  whether  lawyers  or  civil 
employes,  were  evidently  considered.  No.  5,  the  Persius, 
was  convenient  to  himself,  as  having  by  him  notes  of  his 
Genevan  lectures.  But  his  endeavour  was  to  give  to  the 
lecture  an  ethical  cast,  as  he  expressly  says  in  the  dedica- 
tion, and  as  is  still  evident  in  the  published  book  ^- 
Though  we  have  not  his  notes  on  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  this  was  also  treated  in  the  same 
practical  spirit.  'Abeunt  studia  in  mores'  was  his 
principle.  The  sentiment  is  continually  escaping  him  that 
the  classics  were  an  instrument  of  moral  training :  * '  I 
desire  to  excite  myself  to  the  love  of  virtue  and  the  hatred 
of  vice,  and  to  aid  the  studious  youth  in  the  same  endea- 

^  viz.  Digest.  lib.  34.  tit.  2. 

^  Ephem.  p.  64 :  '  Rogatu  eorum  quorum  studiis  prodesse  tenemur,'  i.e.  the 
students  as  distinct  from  the  public. 

^  Persii  Sat.  ed.  1605.  ded.  to  Achille  de  Harlay.  Here  Casaubon  pursues 
the  theme  of  the  cultivation  of  the  moral  nature  by  the  classics,  as  being  their 
proper  use  in  education. 

'  Even  greek  grammars  were  composed  with  the  same  view.  Chytrseus, 
Regula  Stud.  1595.  p.  100,  recommends  the  syntax  of  Posselius,  on  account  of 
the  examples  which  followed  the  rules  :  '  Quae  non  modo  praeceptorum  usura 
monstrant,  verum  etiam  utiles  admonitiones  de  Deo,  de  gubernatione  vitse,  et 
regendis  moribus  complectuntur.' 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  loi 

vour,  an  object  which  has  been  too  httle  regarded  by 
former  commentators.' 

Having  done  thus  much  for  the  students,  the  bar,  and 
the  pubKc,  that  the  doctors  might  have  their  turn,  he  takes 
up  the  Physician's  oath  of  Hippocrates. 

These  pubHc  lectures  were  in  latin  ;  they  were  also  all, 
or  nearly  all,  on  latin  texts.  The  Aristotle's  Ethics,  as  it 
was  meant  for  edification,  must  have  been  a  commentary 
on  the  matter,  such  that  it  could  be  easily  followed  by 
those  who  would  not  take  much  interest  in  questions  of 
interpretation.  The  term  he  employs  with  respect  to  the 
"Op/cos  of  Hippocrates  (interpretari)  seems  to  imply  that  he 
made  the  original  the  text  of  his  lecture,,  and  some  know- 
ledge of  greek  was  still  exacted  for  the  degree  of  m.d.  at 
Montpellier^-  Towards  the  end  of  his  time,  Casaubon  put 
on  a  greek  lecture — first  Homer,  then  Pindar — but  these 
were  extra  and  voluntary  lectures,  intended  for  a  younger 
and  special  class,  and  were  not  part  of  his  public  duty. 

The  freedom  with  which  he  mixes  long  greek  citations, 
and  the  time  he  spends  on  asserting  the  true  meaning  of 
greek  words,  in  his  lectures  on  Persius,  show,  however, 
that  he  addressed  an  audience  to  whom  greek  was  not 
wholly  unintelligible,  or  uninstructing.  Yet  the  fact  that 
latin  was  the  chosen  subject  of  his  public  lectures,  at  the 
very  time  when  his  private  reading  was  chiefly  greek,  is 

^  The  '  Registre  des  procureurs,'  at  Montpellier,  cited  by  M.  Egger,  Hel- 
I^nisme,  i.  175,  has  an  entry  '  Magister  Rabelaisius  pro  suo  ordinario  elegit 
Hbrum  "  Prognosticorum  "  Hippocratis  quem  greece  interpretatus  est.'  But  it 
seems  clear  from  Rabelais'  own  account,  that  he  only  referred  to  the  Greek 
to  correct  the  errors  of  the  Latin  version  on  which  he  read.  Aphorismi 
Hippocrat.  ded. 

[It  seems  to  have  escaped  Mr.  Pattison's  notice  that  notes  on  the  Oath  of 
Hippocrates,  purporting  to  be  by  Casaubon,  were  afterwards  printed  by 
Franyois  Ranchin  in  Hippocratis  Jusjurandum  Grmce  et  Latine,  cum  Franc. 
Ranchini  Commentario  et  Is.  Casaubotii  notis,  Monspel.  1618  (cited  by 
Hoffmann,  Bibl.  Lexicon).  Francis  Ranchin  was  admitted  m.d.  at  Montpellier 
in  1590,  and  probably  attended  Casaubon's  lectures  on  the"0/)/tos  in  1596. 
No  doubt  the  Notce  Casauboni  would  be  then  taken  down  by  Ranchin  at 
Casaubon's  lectures.] 

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102  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

in  conformity  with  all  we  know  of  the  character  of  in- 
struction in  France  at  this  period. 

M.  Nisard  says^  that  after  the  definitive  triumph  of 
Catholicism  in  France,  greek  became  offensive  as  the 
language  of  heresy.  This  is  perhaps  to  say  too  much. 
But  it  is  certainly  true  that  more  strenuous  efforts  were 
made  at  this  moment  to  keep  up  greek  and  hebrew  in 
the  protestant  academies,  poor  as  they  were,  than  in  the 
cathohc  and  Jesuit  colleges  and  universities.  This  was 
certainly  from  no  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  French 
reformed  with  the  true  mind  of  classical  Greece,  which 
was  as  much  out  of  their  reach  as  out  of  the  reach  of  a 
servile  Jesuit.  But  catholic  France  felt  that  affinity  for 
the  christian  empire  and  its  language,  which  has  always 
been  predominant  among  the  romance  nationalities. 
'Manners,'  says  M.  Nisard,  'would  have  effected,  in  the 
course  of  nature,  that  which  religious  passion  brought 
about  violently.  We  are  the  sons  of  the  latins,  and  the 
latin  genius  has  always  had  our  preference.  We  have  the 
practical  spirit  of  Rome,  and  the  roman  taste  for  the  uni- 
versal, which,  in  our  political  history,  has  shown  itself  in 
our  well-known  passion  to  subdue  and  regulate  every- 
thing according  to  our  own  pattern.' 

Casaubon's  habit  of  intermixing  greek  words  and 
phrases  was  not  a  pedantic  affectation,  but  the  natural 
language  of  a  man,  who  spent  most  of  the  hours  of  every 
day  in  the  company  of  greek  books.  With  all  his  won- 
derful command  of  latin,  even  for  uncommon  occasions, 
the  greek  phrase  would  occur  first,  and  he  takes  it  without 
waiting  to  think  of  the  latin.  Though  he  wrote  out  his 
inaugural,  his  daily  lectures  were  delivered  from  notes. 
These  notes  were  chiefly  passages  from  greek  authors, 
sometimes  interpretative  of  a  word,  sometimes  illustrating 
and  enforcing  his  author's  statement.  With  these  two 
objects— to  interpret  the  author,  or  to  enforce  his  state- 

'  Lit.  Franf,  vol.  i.  p.  431. 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  103 

merit — he  is  exclusively  occupied.  There  is  no  ad 
captandum  rhetoric,  no  original  thought,  no  flourish  of 
trumpets  to  awaken  the  sleepy,  or  arouse  the  hstless. 
He  does  not  forget  that  he  is  there  to  teach,  not  to  please. 
If  we  ask  how  lectures  which  are  so  unmistakably  dull, 
which  are  so  thickly  sprinkled  with  greek,  which  not  all 
could  follow,  yet  came  to  be  popular,  the  explanation  is, 
that  the  lecturer  did  what  he  proposed  to  do,  and  the 
audience  expected  no  more.  He  proposed  to  interpret  an 
author,  and  the  audience  went  with  their  books  to  have 
the  interpretation.  When  he  lectured  on  Aristotle's 
Ethics,  I  conceive  his  auditors  to  have  followed  in  the 
latin  version,  and  that  the  lecturer  referred  to  the  greek 
which  was  printed  on  the  same  page,  in  critical  passages, 
and  for  leading  terms.  Reading  the  classics  was  not  a 
profession  confined  to  experts.  The  classics  were  the 
literature  of  the  educated,  and  they  wanted  to  be  helped 
to  understand  that  literature.  Casaubon,  busy  on  his 
point,  and  keeping  to  it,  was  just  the  man  for  them.  The 
completeness  of  his  knowledge  unconsciously  impressed 
even  those  who  were  incompetent  to  appreciate  how 
complete  it  was.  They  felt  they  were  in  the  hands  of  a 
master  of  the  craft.  Medicine  and  law,  it  was  said,  they 
had  always  had  at  Montpelher,  now  at  last  Casaubon  had 
brought  the  Muses '. 

Casaubon  was  too  modest  to  be  carried  away  by  this 
sudden  popularity.  But  he  was  gratified  by  tasting 
general  recognition,  and  pleased  to  be  able  to  announce 
to  his  patron  de  Fresne  that  his  experiment  had  been 
so  successful,  and  to  let  his  friends  at  Geneva  know  that 
the  prophet,  who  had  no  honour  in  his  own  country, 
had  found  it  elsewhere. 

One  evil  this  public  expectation  brought  with  it.  It 
was  necessary  to  respond  to  it.     The  applause  which 

^  Ep.   IIS  ■  '  Multorum  opinio  est,  illatas  in  hanc  provinciam  musas  adventu 
nostrc' 

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I04  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

attended  his  course,  imposed  fresh  labour.  He  was 
obliged  to  devote  hours  to  preparation,  hours  which  he 
wanted  for  his  unfinished  Athenaeus.  His  very  success 
was  a  hindrance  to  him.  He  had  sought  leisure  in 
coming  to  Montpellier,  and  not  found  it.  ^ '  Such  studies 
as  these,'  he  writes  in  September  1600,  'require  leisure 
and  profound  repose.  I  have  been,  by  a  succession  of 
various  accidents,  called  away  from  working  at  my  task, 
and  may  say  that  I  have  not  had  a  single  month's,  hardly 
a  single  day's,  perfect  quiet  among  my  books.'  And  again 
a  little  later, '  Leisure  is  what  I  desire  more  than  anything, 
if  it  might  be  God's  will  to  give  it  me.  My  literary 
schemes  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  demand  repose 
of  mind  as  an  indispensable  condition.' 

But  not  all  his  day  was  given  to  his  lecture  and  to  pre- 
paring his  Athenaeus.  The  diary  enables  us  to  trace  day 
by  day  his  private  reading  at  this  period.  Besides  the 
devotional  book  in  the  early  morning,  he  looks  into  a 
variety  of  books  in  the  course  of  the  day,  but  has  always 
one  author  whom  he  steadily  goes  on  with  every  day  till 
he  has  read  him  through.  The  first  such  achievement  in 
1597  is  Basil,  the  whole  of  whom  is  read  between  Feb- 
ruary ig  and  March  11.  As  this  must  have  been  Froben's 
edition  of  1551,  which  contains  698  folio  pages  of  greek 
type  packed  exceptionally  close,  we  have  an  average 
reading  of  thirty-five  pages  per  day ;  yet  he  was  ill  most 
of  the  time,  and  more  than  one  day  out  of  the  twenty  was 
curtailed  or  lost  altogether  by  business.  Either  his  own 
health  or  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  set  him  next  upon 
Hippocrates,  the  whole  of  which  takes  him  only  twenty- 
five  days,  though  here  he  was  helped  by  the  Easter 
holidays.  After  this  feat  it  seems  disproportionate  that 
Cedrenus  takes  thirteen  days,  but  other  books  were  in  hand 
during  the  time.    We  have  mention,  besides,  of  Jerome, 

^  Ep.  213  :  '  Otium  et  quietem  altam  studia  haec  postulant.'     Ep.  1023 ;  '  Ea 
molimur  in  Uteris,  quae  animi  tranquillitatem  desiderant.' 


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"!•]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  105 

Chrysostom,  Tertullianus,  Menander  Rhetor,  Philostratus, 
Apicius,  all  between  January  and  July.  And  yet  the 
diary  omits  to  mention  many  readings.  This  is  evident, 
not  only  from  citations  in  his  commentaries  on  authors, 
but  from  the  volumes  once  in  his  possession  still  extant. 
There  is,  e.  g.  in  the  British  Museum,  a  copy  of  Calvin's 
'  Epistolae,'  edition  of  Hanau  1597,  marked  throughout  by 
Casaubon's  pen.  We  have  in  it  a  volume  of  780  pages, 
in  small  type,  and  not  on  a  classical  subject,  read  atten- 
tively, and  yet  not  noticed  in  the  diary,  unless  we  assume 
that  a  Frankfort  book,  published  in  1597,  did  not  come 
into  Casaubon's  hands  till  after  1603.  In  this  case  it 
might  have  been  spoken  of  in  that  fascicule  of  the  diary 
which  is  lost.  While  lectures  are  proceeding,  Athenaeus 
is  in  hand ;  Casaubon  is  continually  ill,  has  his  correspond- 
ence to  keep  up,  and,  worst  of  all,  he  is  Rector  of  the 
faculty.  This  is  the  most  vexing  distraction  of  alP.  It 
involves  him,  besides  the  comparatively  simple  business 
of  the  faculty,  in  looking  after  the  lower  school,  and  pro- 
viding it  with  regents.  This  'hated  office'  (munus 
invisum)  was  fortunately  only  for  a  year.  Books  of  con- 
troversy, e.  g.  Bulenger  against  Du  Plessis,  he  looks  into 
in  what  he  calls  his  leisure  hours,  'horae  succisivae,' 
though  it  is  not  easy  to  see  where,  in  the  life  we  have 
described,  were  any  such. 

It  was  clear,  then,  that  whatever  else  Montpellier  could 
give  him,  it  had  not  given  him  his  long  desired  leisure. 
He  soon  began  to  find  that  it  did  not  realise  even  the 
expectations  he  had  most  certainly  formed.  Popularity 
is  from  its  nature  shortlived,  nowhere  more  so  than  in 
France,  where  it  is  the  course  of  nature  to  '  smile,  adore, 
abuse,  discard,  forget.'  The  audiences  fell  off,  the  novelty 
was  gone  and  the  interest  abated.  The  terms  of  his 
engagement,  originally  '  not  brilliant,'  were  ill  performed. 
He  had  been  promised  six  months'  back  salary  towards 

'  Ephem.  p.  30 :  '  Officia  a  studiis  avocantia,  et  valde  inofBciosa.' 

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I06  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  expense  of  moving.  He  could  not  get  any  part  of  it. 
He  was  to  have  150  crowns  to  furnish  with,  this  was  cut 
down  to  100.  A  house  had  been  promised.  He  was 
obhged  to  huddle  his  family  into  two  rooms.  After  some 
delay,  Verchant,  one  of  the  elders  of  the  church,  offered 
a  house.  But  he  had  to  pay  ten  crowns  a  year  for  it,  and 
one  year's  rent  was  deducted  from  his  stipend  in  advance. 
Firewood  had  been  stipulated,  a  costly  article  in  a  part  of 
the  country  far  from  the  great  forests,  and  where  the  cold 
in  winter  is  occasionally  intense.  It  was  doled  out  to  him 
in  a  niggardly  way,  not  a  tenth  part  given  of  his  con- 
sumption. Finally,  his  salary  itself  was  allowed  to  fall 
into  arrear,  the  two-monthly  term,  which  was  in  the 
contract,  was  not  observed.  The  poor  scholar  was  driven 
to  humiliating  importunity.  His  own  and  his  wife's  ill- 
health,  and  the  death  of  a  daughter,  Elisabeth,  of  fever, 
brought  back  his  habitual  despondency  about  his  family 
affairs.  De  Fresne  and  Ranchin  were  both  absent.  He 
wrote  to  them  to  Paris  to  ask  them  to  use  their  influence 
in  his  behalf.  The  effect  of  their  doing  so  was  to  produce 
civil  excuses  in  reply  to  fresh  applications.  The  governor, 
the  Due  de  Ventadour,  was  absent ;  or  one  of  the  consuls 
was  ill  in  bed  ;  or  the  salt  duties,  out  of  which  the  stipend 
was  payable,  could  not  be  collected  because  of  the 
troubles.  He  had  to  pay  a  heavy  fee  on  the  royal  diploma 
conferring  his  title  and  his  chair.  He  applied  for  letters 
of  naturalisation,  but  the  fee  demanded  by  the  chancery 
of  Paris,  though  Ranchin  applied  personally,  was  so  enor- 
mous, that  Casaubon  declined  to  take  them  out.  The 
same  difficulty  was  renewed  on  his  applying  for  a  copy- 
right protection  of  his  volume  of  Notes  on  Athenaeus, 
without  which  no  publisher  would  undertake  the  expense 
of  printing.  He  feels,  as  Erskine  did,  his  children  pulling 
the  skirts  of  his  coat  and  crying  ^ '  get  us  bread.'  He 
could  not  have  got  along  but  for  help  from  friends.    Jean 

'  Ephera.  p.  74  :  '  Charissimi  liberi  aurem  vellunt.' 

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Ill-]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  107 

de  Serres,  himself  only  a  poor  minister,  shared  his  purse 
with  Casaubon.  A  considerable  present  was  unexpectedly 
sent  by  an  admirer,  the  governor  of  Rodez,  to  whom  he 
was  not  even  personally  known.  Bongars  continued  his 
donations  of  valuable  books.  In  time  some  of  his  worst 
grievances  were  remedied.  He  threatened  departure  to 
Bale,  or  back  to  Geneva.  To  see  him  go  back  in  disgust 
to  Geneva  would  have  been  humiliating  to  the  council  of 
Montpellier,  which  had  enjoyed  the  triumph  of  alluring 
him  away.  They  agreed  to  raise  his  salary  to  1000  livres, 
in  lieu  of  all  perquisites ;  payment  seems  to  have  been 
more  punctual,  and  he  removed  to  a  better  house. 

But  he  could  not  settle  down  in  Montpellier.  Even 
before  he  went  there  his  friends  had  let  fall  hints  of  some- 
thing further  in  store.  De  Fresne  and  Ranchin  were  in 
Paris  in  the  autumn  of  1597,  and  their  report  of  Casaubon 
had  filled  the  literary  set  there  with  desire  to  get  him  to 
Paris.  When  they  returned  to  Montpellier,  they  dropped 
hints  of  a  mysterious  nature.  There  was  nothing  definite 
named,  perhaps  nothing  definite  conceived.  But  the 
king's  name  was  used.  '  It  was  not  unlikely  the  king 
might  do  something  for  him.'  Casaubon  might  have  been 
in  the  dark  as  to  how  little  the  king  could,  or  would,  do. 
But  still,  what  was  said  was  enough  to  unsettle  him,  in 
a  place  in  which  he  had  never  become  rooted,  and  to 
prevent  him  from  ever  trying  to  make  the  best  of  its 
vexations.  To  these  were  now  to  be  added  the  loss  of  a 
young  daughter,  Elisabeth,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  and 
the  continual  aggression  of  the  catholic  clergy,  who  were 
pushing  to  regain  their  old  ascendancy  in  the  university. 

This  small  cloud  was  big  with  elements  of  future  dis- 
turbance. No  sooner  was  the  bishop  restored  than  the 
chapter  began  to  claim  the  college  de  Mende,  the  building 
in  which  the  classes  were  held,  as  their  property.  The 
present  bishop,  de  Ratte,  was  an  antileaguer,  a  man  of 
some  letters,  and  on  friendly  terms  with  Casaubon.     His 

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Io8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

successor,  Fenouillet,  was  a  fanatic,  a  pupil  of  S.  Frangois 
de  Sales.  But  even  with  the  politic  de  Ratte,  the  restor- 
ation of  the  authority  of  the  church  was  a  paramount 
object.  The  agitation  never  ceased.  Inch  by  inch  the 
lost  ground  was  reconquered.  In  1600  the  clergy  re- 
covered the  college  de  Mende.  By  1613  the  victory  over 
the  university  was  completed,  the  bishop  '  visited '  by  his 
vicar-general,  and  new  statutes,  in  a  catholic  spirit,  were 
promulgated,  which  required  every  member  of  the  uni- 
versity to  attend  mass  daily.  Of  this  sap  and  siege  Casau- 
bon  only  saw  the  commencement,  but  it  was  enough  to 
make  it  count  among  the  discomforts,  which  made  him 
ready  to  embrace  any  opening  in  another  quarter. 

The  immediate  occasion  of  his  leaving  MontpeUier  was 
his  edition  of  Athenseus.  This  he  considered  the  work 
on  which  he  first  really  ventured  his  reputation,  as  it 
proved  to  be  the  work  of  his  life.  All  previous  books  he 
spoke  of  as  untimely  births,  the  produce  of  his  apprentice 
years.  He  would  not  own  them.  To  Athenseus  he  was 
about  to  commit  himself 

We  first  find  him  engaged  upon  Athenaeus  as  early  as 
1590.  In  that  year,  in  the  flush  of  youthful  strength,  he 
announced  ^  to  a  young  friend  that  he  might  soon  look  for 
a  volume  of  observations  on  Athenaeus,  of  which  author  he 
had  been  fortunate  enough  'to  get  good  mss.'  In  1594, 
he  repeats  the  announcement  to  Scaliger,  but  it  is  now  an 
edition  of  Athenaeus  which  he  contemplates.  In  1596, 
when  he  left  Geneva,  he  had  completed  a  recension  of  the 
text,  and  passed  a  great  part  of  the  sheets  through  the 
press.  He  had  been  printing  this  under  his  own  eye,  at 
the  press  of  Paul  Estienne,  though  it  was  published  for 
him  by  Jerome  Commelin  at  Heidelberg,  in  1597.  Being 
hurried  by  his  removal,  the  last  sheets  of  the  book  were 
not  so  correct  as  they  should  have  been^;  the  volume 

'  Ep.  5. 

'  Animadw.  in  Ath,  praef.  :  '  Migratio  nostra  ex  Allobrogum  finibus  in  Galliam 
fuit  in  causa  ut  ea  editio  inemendatior  prodiret.' 

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ni.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  109 

was  without  preface  or  dedication,  and  it  contained  not  a 
single  note.  The  first  six  months  at  Montpellier  were  too 
much  occupied  with  their  own  duties,  and  it  was  not  till 
the  summer  vacation  that  he  could  sit  down  regularly  to 
the  task.  He  did  not  propose  to  himself  to  write  a  com- 
mentary on  Athenaeus^,  but  only  to  attempt  some  cor- 
rection of  its  most  corrupt  text,  and  some  explanation  of 
the  many  obscurities  arising  out  of  that  corruption.  When 
he  began  the  work,  June  23,  1597,  he  had  no  notion  of  the 
time  that  it  would  require.  Looking  back  upon  the  finished 
sheets,  he  says,  '  It  would  be  impossible  to  explain  to  you, 
reader,  unless  you  had  yourself  some  experience  of  this 
kind  of  investigation,  what  a  world  of  labour  and  vexation 
this  work  has  cost  me.'  He  calculated  that  if  he  could 
revise  the  original  at  the  rate  of  four  pages  per  day  it 
might  be  done  within  a  few  months.  As  the  volume  of 
text  contained  705  pages,  six  months  at  this  rate  of 
progress  would  have  sufficed.  So  much  had  he  under- 
rated the  peculiar  difficulties  of  this  author,  and  the  con- 
sumption of  time  in  literary  research,  that  three  years  and 
two  months  of  his  herculean  labour  were  required  to  bring 
the  Observations  to  a  close,  without  the  prolegomena. 

The  diary  enables  us  to  compute  the  time — almost  the 
days  and  hours — occupied  in  the  undertaking.  The 
foundation  had  been  laid,  and  memoranda  accumulated, 
during  the  revision  of  the  text  at  Geneva.  He  began  to 
write  the  '  Animadversiones '  at  Montpellier,  June  23, 1597, 
he  completed  them  April  16,  1598.  This  was  the  first 
rough  draft  of  a  folio  volume,  of  648  pages.  Within  a  few 
days  he  commenced  a  revision  of  the  whole  of  what  he 
had  written.  The  remainder  of  this  year  was  much 
broken  into  by  journeys  and  visits.  He  began  to  print 
the  first  sheet  March  20,  1599,  and  corrected  the  last  at 
Lyon,  August  9,  1600. 

Admitted  thus  behind  the  scenes  to  a  sixteenth-century 

'  Prsefat.  in  Ath. :  '  Nee  commentarium  in  A.  scribere  consilium  nobis.' 


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110  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

workshop,  we  feel  that  we  are  now  in  the  age  of  erudition. 
The  renaissance,  the  spring-tide  of  modern  Ufe,  with  its 
genial  freshness,  is  far  behind  us.  The  creative  period  is 
past,  the  accumulative  is  set  in.  Genius  can  now  do 
nothing,  the  day  is  to  dull  industry.  The  prophet  is  de- 
parted, and  in  his  place  we  have  the  priest  of  the  book. 
Casaubon  knows  so  much  of  ancient  lore,  that  not  only 
his  faculties,  but  his  spirits  are  oppressed  by  the  know- 
ledge. He  can  neither  create  nor  enjoy;  he  groans  under 
his  load.  The  scholar  of  1500  gambols  in  the  free  air  of 
classical  poetry,  as  in  an  atmosphere  of  joy.  The  scholar 
of  1600  has  a  century  of  compilation  behind  him,  and 
'  drags  at  each  remove  a  lengthening  chain.'  If  anyone 
thinks  that  to  write  and  read  books  is  a  life  of  idleness, 
let  him  look  at  Casaubon's  diary.  Pope,  during  his 
engagement  on  Homer,  used  to  be  haunted  by  it  in  his 
dreams,  and  'wished  to  be  hanged  a  hundred  times.' 
Vergil,  having  undertaken  the  .iEneid,  said  of  himself  that 
'  he  thought  he  must  have  been  out  of  his  senses  when  he 
did  so.'  But  of  the  blood  and  sweat,  the  groans  and  sighs, 
which  enter  into  the  composition  of  a  folio  volume  of 
learned  research,  no  more  faithful  record  has  ever  been 
written  than  Casaubon's  '  Ephemerides.'  Throughout  its 
entire  progress,  the  '  Animadversiones  '  on  Athenseus  was 
an  ungrateful  and  irksome  task,  '  catenati  in  ergastulo 
labores.'  He  can  hardly  open  Athenaeus  without  disgust, 
and  he  prays  God,  day  by  day,  that  he  may  get  away  from 
such  trifles  to  better  reading. 

In  some  instances  the  travail  pangs  and  throbs  attendant 
on  composition  are  repaid  by  the  delight  of  the  parent  in 
contemplating  the  offspring.  This  was  not  Casaubon's 
case.  To  himself  the  labour  and  its  result  were  equally 
repulsive  and  disappointing.  He  felt  most  bitterly,  on  its 
termination,  how  far  he  had  fallen  short  of  his  aim, 
moderate  as  his  ambition  was.  For  he  called  his  book 
'Animadversiones  in  A.  Deipnosophistas,'  'Observations 


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Ill,]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  ill 

on  Athenaeus/  not  a  '  Commentary.'  He  invokes  Sca- 
liger's  aid  to  emend  some  passages,  whose  corruption  was 
beyond  his  own  skill.  To  have  done  with  the  work  was 
all  the  satisfaction  it  gave  him.  Nor  indeed  did  he  ever 
quite  finish  it.  He  projected  '  Prolegomena,'  which  were 
to  give  a  full,  (prolixe,)  account  of  the  author,  and  of  the 
plan  and  construction  of  the  Deipnosophists.  He  shut 
himself  up  '  parturiens,'  trying  to  put  these  into  shape. 
But  after  three  days'  labour  he  desisted  from  the  attempt, 
being  unable  to  satisfy  himself^. 

When  he  was  ready  with  the  copy  of  the  Observations, 
the  next  thing  was  to  find  a  publisher.  The  city  of 
Hippocrates  contained  no  greek  press  in  1600,  any  more 
than  it  had  done  seventy  years  before,  when  Rabelais 
printed  at  Lyon  his  edition  of  the  Hippocratic  'Aphorisms.' 
The  earliest  book  known  as  printed  at  Montpellier  is  not 
earlier  than  1597.  Prefixed  to  this — a  law-book — are  some 
twenty  lines  of  greek.  So  that  Jean  Gilet,  the  Montpellier 
publisher,  had  some  greek  type.  When  Casaubon  says  ^ 
that  their  only  printer  had  no  greek  type,  he  must  be  taken 
to  mean  not  enough  for  an  undertaking  such  as  the 
'  Animadversions '  on  Athenaeus. 

Commelin,  the  publisher  of  his  former  volume,  the  text, 
was  dead,  and  with  Casaubon's  present  prospects  it  was 
desirable  that  the  book  should  be  published  in  France. 
He  endeavoured  to  get  a  Genevan  printer  to  establish  a 
press  with  a  greek  fount,  and  a  learned  corrector,  at  Mont- 
pellier ^.  But  there  was  no  scope  for  a  learned  press  even 
in  a  university  town.  We  may  remember  that  Oxford  did 
not  get  greek  types  till  1586,  and  that  Whitgift  in  1584, 

^  Ephem.  p.  289. 

^  Ep.  153 :  '  Typographum  hie  habemus,  cujus  opera  utamur,  nullum ;  qui 
adest,  graecis  literis  caret.'  [The  words  surely  mean  that  the  printer  had  no 
knowledge  of  greek.] 

'  After  Casaubon's  departure,  Fran9ois  Chouet,  of  Geneva,  seems  to  have 
acted  on  his  suggestion,  and  to  have  opened  a  branch  at  Montpellier.  See 
Cotton,  Typogr.  Gaz.  2'.  series,  s.  v. 


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112  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

doubted  the  expediency  of  allowing  a  press  at  all  at 
Cambridge  ^.  There  was  indeed  a  greek  press  at  Tou- 
louse, perhaps  now,  certainly  in  1615,  when  young 
Maussac*  edited  a  tract  of  Plutarch  and  Psellus  '  De 
lapidum  virtutibus.'  But  no  heretic  could  print,  or  even 
be,  at  Toulouse,  a  city  where  even  the  Edict  could  never 
be  put  in  force  ^.  What  Casaubon  would  have  preferred  ^ 
was  the  splendour  of  Parisian  type  and  paper — Morel  or 
Patisson — whose  editions,  even  in  degenerate  days,  were 
'  editions  de  luxe '  when  placed  by  the  side  of  the  smudgy 
and  faded  pages,  which  now  issued  from  the  presses  of 
Geneva  or  Heidelberg.  But  when  proof  sheets  could  not 
be  transmitted  by  a  rapid  post,  you  could  only  print  where 
you  lived.  To  print  in  Paris,  you  must  be  in  Paris.  In 
1558,  Hadrian  Junius  had  thought  it  necessary  to  convey 
his  own  MS.  copy  of  his  Adagia  from  Haarlem  to  Bale, 
not  considering  the  ordinary  channels  safe.  And  in  1600 
when  Casaubon  sent  by  '  the  ordinary '  a  portion  of  the 
15th  book  of  Athenaeus  from  Paris  to  Lyon,  it  was  not 
without  great  misgivings  *.    There  remained  Lyon. 

Lyon  was  the  staple  of  the  French  book-trade,  such  as 
that  trade  had  now  become.  In  the  middle  of  the  century 
the  Lyon  presses,  stimulated  by  the  example  of  the 
Swabian  Gryphius,  had  imitated  and  rivalled  those  of 
Italy.  Sebastian  Gryphius  died  1556;  soon  the  religious 
disturbances  began,  and  Lyon  itself  fell  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  catholic  epidemic.  The  Lyonnese  presses 
took  a  new  direction,  and  entered  upon  a  rivalry,  not  with 
Aldus,  but  with  Geneva,  in  the  fabrication  of  wares  for 

'  Whitgift  to  Burghley,  Hejrwood's  Transactions,  i.  381. 

*  See  note  B  in  Appendix. 

^  Toulouse  was  the  scene  of  the  burning  alive  of  Vanini,  in  1619.  The 
ferocious  fanaticism  of  the  place  was  not  subdued  in  1761,  as  we  find  from  the 
frightful  tragedy  of  Jean  Calas. 

'  Ep.  169. 

*  Scheltema,  Vita  Junii,  p.  58 :  '  Vix  reperias,  cui  tuto  perferendum  aliquid 
credas.'  Cas.  Ephem.  p.  247  ;  '  Hodie  quod  supererat  libri  15  Athenaei  Lugdunura 
misi,  non  sine  soUicitudine  propter  incerta  casuum.' 


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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  113 

the  cheap  market.  While  Geneva  supplied  bibles  and 
calvinistic  theology,  Lyon  was  equally  industrious  in  the 
production  of  missals  and  books  of  hours.  And  not  con- 
tent with  the  monopoly  of  their  respective  provinces, 
Geneva  attempted  surreptitious  editions  of  Jesuit  publi- 
cations, and  Lyon  sent  Calvinistic  hymn-books  into  the 
protestant  market.  In  classical  and  law  books  the  com- 
petition was  open  and  keen.  Before  Reform  was  heard 
of,  a  strong  commercial  jealousy  had  been  entertained  by 
the  old  Roman  municipium,  towards  the  rising  town  on 
the  Leman  lake.  Theological  antipathy  came  to  embitter 
an  old  grudge.  And  when  the  French  refugees  led 
Geneva  largely  into  the  printing  business,  which  Lyon 
had  hitherto  practised  as  a  monopoly,  and  attracted  the 
Lyonnese  compositors  by  higher  wages,  the  exasperation 
at  Lyon  knew  no  bounds.  The  Lyonnese  printers  availed 
themselves  of  the  brand  of '  heretic '  to  get  the  Genevan 
books  confiscated  at  the  frontier,  and  thus  secure  at  least 
the  French  market.  Protestant  countries  had  no  index, 
and  the  Genevan  printers  could  not  retahate  in  kind. 
They  therefore  endeavoured — more  irritating  still — to 
undersell.  For  the  German  market,  Geneva  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  more  conveniently  situated  towards 
Frankfort,  then  the  staple  of  the  German  book-trade.  The 
Lyonnese  printers,  though  they  continued  to  frequent  the 
fairs  at  Frankfort,  did  a  much  smaller  business  there  than 
those  of  Geneva.  But  the  Genevese  printers  had  no  idea 
of  foregoing  the  French  sale,  now  that  it  began  to  revive 
at  the  peace,  and  they  had  recourse  to  various  expedients 
to  evade  the  prohibition.  They  omitted  from  the  title  the 
obnoxious  '  Genevae,'  or  substituted  some  other  place,  e.g. 
'  Aureliae,'  '  Coloniae,'  '  St.  Gervais,'  '  Antwerp.'  They 
even  obtained  from  Henri  iv,  in  his  capacity  of  protector 
of  the  republic,  a  patent  permitting  them  to  use  the  imprint 
'Colonise  Allobrogum'  for  latin,  and  'Cologny-  for  french 
books.    Another  device  was  for  two  members  of  the  same 

I 
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114  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

family  or  firm  to  have  establishments  at  both  places. 
This  was  done  by  Pesnot,  by  the  Tournes,  by  Lepreux, 
and  by  Le  Maire.  The  'Aristotle's  Works'  of  1590, 
which  Casaubon  had  seen  through  the  press,  was  thus 
printed  by  Le  Maire  of  Geneva,  though  it  had  Lyon 
(Lugduni)  in  the  title. 

While  Casaubon  was  at  a  loss  for  a  printer,  his  father- 
in-law's  death  occurred  at  Lyon  (January,  1598).  It  became 
necessary  that  Casaubon  should  go  to  Geneva,  to  see  after 
his  wife's  portion,  which  he  had  never  received.  On  his 
way  he  stopped  at  Lyon,  where,  most  unexpectedly,  a 
patron  was  awaiting  him.  This  was  Meric  de  Vic,  who 
was  now  residing  at  Lyon,  in  capacity  of  '  surintendant  de 
la  justice.'  De  Vic  was  himself  not  without  classical 
instruction  ^ ;  Madame  de  Vic  was  a  woman  of  superior 
understanding.  They  both  liked  to  have  about  them  men 
of  letters,  and  questions  of  even  professional  erudition 
might  be  heard  discussed  at  their  table.  Casaubon  has 
recorded  one  such  occasion,  when  the  talk  turned  on  the 
early  date  of  the  corruptions  found  in  classical  texts.  The 
instance  of  the  transposition  of  leaves  in  the  fourth  book 
of  Athenaeus  was  cited  by  one  of  the  company,  no  doubt 
by  Casaubon  himself,  as  he  alone  would  have  known  of  it. 
De  Vic,  in  later  years  the  patron  of  Grotius,  became  now, 
by  de  Thou's  intervention  ^,  the  patron  of  Casaubon,  and 
insisted  upon  his  becoming  his  guest.  The  plague  raging 
just  then  at  Geneva,  de  Vic  would  not  suffer  him  to 
proceed  on  his  journey.  Suddenly  summoned  to  Paris 
to  attend  the  king,  de  Vic  proposed  to  Casaubon  to  go  in 
his  train.  Under  these  favourable  auspices  he  saw  Paris 
for  the  first  time. 


'  Of  Meric  de  Vic,  Grotius  says  in  1622,  Grotii  Epp.  ep.  171 :  '  Literas 
quantum  amaret,  in  Casaubono  ostendit,  et  mihi  .  .  .  non  obscura  dedit 
benevolentia;  sua;  signa.'  [On  his  library  see  Guigard,  '  Armorial  du  biblio- 
phile/ t.  ij,  p.  466,  ed.  2.] 

'  Ep.  1020. 


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III.]  MONTPELLIER.      1596-1599.  115 

He  found  himself  received  with  open  arms,  and 
as  one  well  known  to  them,  by  the  best  set  in  the 
capital. 

This  circle  of  men,  a  society  such  as  even  Paris  has  not 
been  able  to  produce  again,  consisted  chiefly  of  members 
of  the  bar,  or  magistrature.  Their  centre  of  resort  was 
the  house  of  J.  A.  de  Thou,  the  historian,  president  of  the 
court  of  parlement.  Their  presiding  genius  had  been 
Pierre  Pithou,  who  was  just  lost  to  them  by  death,  1596, 
and  at  the  time  of  Casaubon's  coming  to  them  they  were 
none  of  them  young.  None  of  them,  neither  Nicholas 
Rapin,  nor  Passerat,  nor  Servin,  nor  Jacques  Gillot,  nor 
even  Frangois  Pithou,  had  the  solid  classical  learning  of 
Pierre.  Francois  Pithou  was  a  scientific  jurist,  and  was 
deeply  versed  in  the  old  Prankish  codes,  the  Salic, 
Ripuarian  and  the  capitulaire  ^ ;  Passerat  and  Rapin  were 
elegant  versifiers,  but  all  alike  agreed  in  the  love  and  culti- 
vation of  greek  and  latin  letters.  Yet  they  were  no  mere 
literary  triflers,  witness  the  'Historia'  of  de  Thou,  the 
'Annales  Francorum'  of  Pierre  Pithou.  Some  of  them 
filled  the  highest  civil  or  judicial  offices ;  all  of  them  had 
gone  through  the  time  of  the  League,  and  the  Sixteen ; 
some  had  sate  in  the  parlement  of  Tours,  or  been  sent  to 
the  Bastille  by  Bussi-Leclerc.  They  were  catholics,  but 
of  all  nuances,  from  Frangois  Pithou,  who  was  devot,  and 
hung  about  the  convents,  to  Pierre,  who  was  a  protestant 
brought  into  the  catholic  fold  by  terrorism.  They  were 
catholics,  but  catholics  who  were  united  in  a  veritable 
culte  of  the  absent  Scaliger,  and  who  sought  to  locate 
Casaubon  in  Paris.  Out  of  their  reunion  had  issued  the 
Satyre  Menippee,  a  literary  pamphlet,  whose  surprising 
public  effect  ranks  it  with  the  '  Epistolae  obscurorum 
virorum,'  the  letters  of  Junius,  or  the  '  Qu'est  ce  que  le 

1  Scaliger".  2".  p.  187  :  '  Fran9ois  Pithou  est  le  plus  docte  d'aujourduy  en  ces 
auteurs  du  dernier  temps,  comma  leges  Ripuariorum,  Capitularia,  etc.,  aprfes 
luy  peut  estre  mis  Freherus.' 

I    2 

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Il6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Tiers-etat?'  All  past  suffering  is  a  possession,  and  the 
trials  from  which  they  had  barely  emerged,  already  old 
men,  had  given  firmness  to  their  character,  and  breadth 
and  largeness  to  their  views. 

Thirty  years  later  the  Academic  fran^aise  took  its  rise 
in  such  a  reunion  of  hke-minded  men,  who  desired  for 
their  literary  activity  the  encouragement  and  stimulus  of 
social  converse.  ^ '  In  1629  some  private  persons,  lodged 
in  remote  parts  of  Paris,  finding  it  highly  inconvenient, 
by  reason  of  the  great  extent  of  the  city,  to  visit  each 
other  with  the  chance  of  not  meeting,  resolved  to  see  each 
other  one  day  in  each  week  at  the  house  of  M.  Conrart, 
which  was  centrally  situated.'  The  assemblages  at  M. 
Conrart's  house  are  remembered  because  they  have  given 
birth  to  a  celebrated  society,  the  only  institution  in  France 
which  is  more  than  a  century  old.  The  meetings  at  the 
house  of  de  Thou  are  less  famous,  yet  the  men  who  there 
came  together  were  cast  in  a  nobler  and  more  manly 
mould  than  the  dilettante  critics  who  founded  the  academic. 
Ecclesiastical  terrorism  which  condemned  the  history  of 
de  Thou,  as  unfit  reading  for  good  catholics,  had  made  in 
one  generation  sad  havoc  with  the  independence  and  in- 
tegrity of  the  French  character.  In  1629  we  find  ourselves 
in  a  salon  of  men  polished,  ingenious,  and  loving  letters, 
but  wanting  the  more  robust  constituents  both  of  character 
and  intellect. 

The  meetings  at  de  Thou's  house,  in  1598,  were  but  a 
revival  of  an  earlier  Sunday-morning  assemblage,  in  a 
time  before  the  S.  Bartholomew  had  come  to  cast  a  gloom 
over  Parisian  life.  In  the  cloisters  of  the  Cordeliers,  from 
eight  to  eleven,  or  in  Christophe  de  Thou's  house,  after 
dinner,  there  used  to  assemble  the  two  Pithous,  Claude 
du  Puy,  Le  Fevre,  Frangois  Hotman,  the  young  Scaliger, 
with  others  less  famous.   J.  A.  de  Thou  was  but  a  youth  and 

^  Pellisson,  Hist,  de  I'acad.  franp.  i.  8. 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  117 

a  listener.  He  used  to  say  ^'he  had  learnt  all  he  knew 
from  the  conversation  of.  these  men,  who  there  discoursed 
of  letters.  It  required  anyone  to  be  thoroughly  well 
read  to  take  a  part.'  To  the  later  period  of  which  we 
now  write,  Rigault's  ^  description  appHes ;  '  Numerously 
attended  assemblages  at  the  house  of  de  Thou  maintained 
our  circle  of  friends.  Hither  flocked  all  the  best  and  most 
instructed  men  of  all  ranks,  from  every  province  of  the 
kingdom  and  from  foreign  parts.  There  you  heard  and 
discussed  everything  noteworthy  that  occurred  in  the  city 
or  parlement,  all  the  news  that  sails,  oars,  posts  brought 
in  from  over  seas,  or  the  countries  beyond  the  Alps  or 
Pyrenees.' 

The  men  who  have  been  named,  with  others,  formed 
an  inner  circle  which  was  comprehended  in  one  wider. 
'One  secret,'  says  M.  Renan^,  'of  the  power  of  french 
esprit  is  the  close  union  which  has  ever  existed  among  us 
between  those  who  write  books,  and  those  who  read  and 
appreciate  them.'  The  larger  society  is  known  to  history  as 
the  party  of  the  '  politiques,'  and  consisted,  to  speak  broadly, 
of  all  the  men  of  any  education  in  France.  The  bar,  the 
magistrature,  the  lesser  noblesse,  and  even  the  church, 
contributed  to  this  larger  circle,  which  comprehended 
calvinistic  seigneurs,  as  well  as  gallican  prelates.  It  was 
not  numerically  strong,  but,  like  the  party  of  enlightenment 
in  every  period,  its  influence  was  greater  than  its  numbers 
warranted.  It  is  the  policy  of  such  a  party  to  ally  itself 
with  literature,  as  it  is  the  only  party  which  the  press  can 
really  serve.  But  the  'politique'  and  galhcan  party  of 
1600  was  not  only  allied  with  literature,  its  leading  men 
themselves  were  of  classical  culture  and  tastes.  Such 
were  still,  or  had  been,  Paul  de  Foix,  Henri  de  Mesmes, 

'  Thuana,  p.  188  :  '  La  ils  communiquoient  des  lettres,  et  falloit  estre  bien 
fonde  pour  estre  de  leur  compagnie ;  et  pour  moi,  je  ne  faisois  qu'escouter. 
Cette  compagnie  se  trouvoit  cliez  moy  les  festes  apr^s  disner,  oil  M.  Scaliger 
estoit  souvent.' 

'  P.  Puteani  Vita,  p.  24.  'Etudes  morales,  p.  340. 

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II 8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Schomberg,  d'Ossat,  Achille  de  Harlay,  Le  Maitre,  Du 
Vair,  the  cardinal  Joyeuse,  Servin,  Edouard  Mole,  men 
in  whose  lives,  the  camp,  the  court,  or  diplomacy,  had 
whetted  the  appetite  for  knowledge,  and  the  desire  of 
recurring  to  good  books,  as  the  food  of  the  mind.  '  II 
nous  faut,  si  nous  esperons  de  parvenir  a  quelque  gloire, 
hanter  avec  les  morts,'  the  words  of  Du  Vair  ^,  was  the 
rule  and  practice  of  them  all.  Paul  de  Foix  ^  had  a  travel- 
ling hbrary,  which  was  unpacked  for  his  use,  and  that  of 
his  suite,  every  evening  on  their  arrival  at  the  place  where 
they  were  to  lodge. 

This  grave  and  solid  generation,  the  salt  of  french 
society  at  that  epoch,  still  moves  before  us  in  the 
'Memoires'  of  de  Thou,  or  the  'Voyages  en  cour'  of 
Groulart.  The  weight  of  these  men  was  "some  set-off 
against  the  mass  of  the  noblesse,  destitute  of  culture 
and  despising  it^,  and  the  mass  of  the  town  populations, 
deprived  of  all  ideas  but  those  which  they  gathered  inside 
the  walls  of  the  churches.  But  the  men  of  education  by 
no  means  balanced  the  united  weight  of  the  men  of  the 
sword  and  the  clergy.  With  this  latter  party  sided  the 
vast  majority  of  the  nation,  and  with  it  rested  the  real 
force  of  the  government.  The  central  power  in  France 
was  not  strong  enough  to  go  against  the  inert  mass  of  this 
catholic  majority,  on  any  matter  of  public  policy,  which 
lay  within  its  apprehension.  The  small  educated  section 
of  which  we  speak  were  employed  by  the  government, 
but  they  did  not  direct  it.  If  the  experiment  of  placing 
government  in  the  hands  of  men  of  letters  has  been  one 
of  the  misfortunes  of  France  in  recent  times*,  the  want  of 

^  De  r^loquence  fran9.  CEuvr.  p.  237. 

2  Paul  de  Foix  had  been  a  pupil  of  Cujas  (1584).  See  Spangenberg, 
pp.  Ill,  150. 

^  Poirson,  Hist,  du  regne  de  Henri  iv.  3,  630.  Amelot  de  la  Houssaye,  in 
Card.  d'Ossat.  lettr.  195  :  '  Henri  iv.  disoit  qu'avec  son  chancelier  (Sillery) 
qui  ne  savoit  point  de  latin,  et  son  connetable,  qui  ne  savoit  ni  lire  ni  ecrire, 
il  pouvoit  venir  a  bout  des  affaires  les  plus  difiSciles.' 

*  Morley,  Voltaire,  p.  57. 


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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  119 

political  knowledge  among  the  noblesse  was  most  unfor- 
tunate for  the  France  of  Henri  iv.  Hence  they  were  at 
the  mercy  of  the  Jesuits,  who  were  thus  enabled  to  work 
France  in  the  interests  of  an  ultramontane  policy.  The 
party  of  enlightenment  were  obliged  to  be  content  with 
the  subordinate  functions  of  administration,  and  with  alle- 
viating the  mischief  of  a  policy  which  they  could  not 
controul.  Their  best  leverage  was  found  in  the  personal 
character  of  the  king.  This  was  especially  the  case  in 
matters  connected  with  public  instruction,  for  it  is  in  these 
matters  that  the  personal  tastes  of  the  prince  are  most 
influential.  The  encouragement  of  science  and  letters  is 
almost  always  a  personal  influence.  Henri  iv.  had  learnt 
regularly  the  usual  latin  and  greek,  but  he  hated  men  of 
any  pretensions  to  learning,  for  their  independent  bearing. 
Scaliger  he  honoured  with  his  especial  aversion.  But  his 
intelligence  was  too  good,  and  his  views  too  wide  for  him 
not  to  feel  the  advantage  which  general  culture  gives  in 
the  handling  of  affairs.  '  Les  lettres  ouvrent  I'esprit  a 
tout,'  he  said ;  and,  though  he  disliked  the  scholar  by 
profession,  he  preferred  to  employ  and  to  trust  a  well- 
informed  lawyer,  rather  than  an  ignorant  and  arrogant 
grand  seigneur.  He  would  listen  to  de  Thou,  even  if 
unwilling  or  unable  to  act  on  his  suggestions.  ^'The 
king,'  Casaubon  writes  to  Scaliger,  '  though,  as  you  know, 
not  greatly  given  to  literature,  3'et  promises  himself  much 
credit  from  patronising  my  studies.  This  I  owe  to  your 
exaggerated  praises  of  me,  which  he  is  fond  of  re- 
peating.' Henri  iv,  like  Francis  i,  like  Louis  xiv,  had  a 
royal  sense  of  his  duty  as  patron  of  learning,  and  en- 

'  Ep.  208 :  '  Rex,  etsi  ut  scis,  oi  novaiKdiraros  .  .  .  illis  tuis  fidem  veri 
excedentibus  elogiis  adductus,  quae  sunt  illi  quotidie  in  ore,  nihil  mediocre  de 
studiis  nostris  sibi  pollicetur.'  Christopher  Coler  writes  to  Kirchmann  :  '  In 
Gallia  summum  otium  nuntiatur,  et  literse  in  novum  florem  crescunt.  Vocavit 
rex  Casaubonum  Lutetiam,  et  Scaligerum.  Scaligero  sua  manu  seripsit.  Cum 
Casaubono  de  academia  Parisiensi  instituenda  per  tres  horas  locutus  scribitur  a 
Francisco  Pithoeo.' 


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130  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

lightenment  enough  to  understand  the  lustre  such  patron- 
age could  shed  upon  his  country  and  reign. 

Knowing  all  this  of  the  king's  disposition,  Casaubon's 
friends  resolved  to  venture  upon  producing  their  protege 
in  person  at  court.  The  experiment  succeeded ;  he  made 
a  favourable  impression.  The  king — grand  hableur — kept 
him  three  hours  talking  over  the  affairs  of  the  university 
of  Paris,  and  ended  by  inviting  him  to  Paris  to  be  pro- 
fessor in  it.  That  he  might  be  known  to  the  heir  pre- 
sumptive, as  well  as  to  the  reigning  sovereign,  Nicolas  Le 
Fevre  presented  him  to  the  young  prince  of  Conde,  who 
was  being  brought  up  as  a  catholic,  but  was  fortunate  in 
an  enlightened  preceptor.  The  prince  began  immediately 
to  ask  about  Scaliger  ^ :  '  Would  he  return  ?  Such  a  man 
ought  not  to  be  lost  to  France ! '  In  taking  Casaubon  with 
him  to  the  house  of  de  Thou,  de  Vic  was  not  introducing 
a  stranger.  Casaubon  had  been  in  correspondence  with 
de  Thou  for  many  years,  having  introduced  himself  in 
1592,  by  a  present  of  the  first  edition  of  his  '  Theophrastus.' 
He  had  heard  much  of  de  Thou's  library,  but  it  surpassed 
his  expectation  ^-  When  he  entered  the  splendid  collection 
and  read  the  titles — authors  he  had  never  seen,  or  even 
known  to  exist  in  print — his  heart  sank  at  the  thought  of  how 
little  he  knew.  De  Thou  had  been  employed  forty  years 
in  making  this  collection,  which  at  the  time  of  his  death 
consisted  of  8000  volumes  of  printed  books,  and  1000  mss, 
all  in  that  sumptuous  binding  so  well  known  to  amateurs. 
To  Casaubon,  to  whom  friends  were  another  name  for 
impediments  to  study,  the  society  of  de  Thou's  salon 
might  not  present  much  temptation.  But  the  libraries — 
de  Thou's  and  the  royal,  with  which  Queen  Catherine's 

'  Ep.  176:  'Post  prima  salutationis  verba,  qusesivit  a  me  princeps,  numquid 
scirem  quid  valeret  Scaliger?  quid  nunc  ageret?  an  reditum  in  Galliam  cogi- 
taret?  tantum  virum  non  debere  abesse  Gallia.' 

'^  Ep.  175:  'Lutetiam,  quod  felix  sit,  hodie  primum  vidi;  et  statim  magni 
Thuani  museum  ingressus,  quam  multa  ignorarem,  quam  parum  aut  nihil  scirem, 
agnovi. ' 


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in.]  MONTPELLIER.      1596-1599.  121 

had  now  been  united — opened  to  him  that  supply  for 
which  he  had  so  long  thirsted.  From  this  moment  his 
desire  to  remove  to  Paris  became  paramount. 

On  October  27,  Casaubon  returned  to  Montpellier  ;  but 
not  to  resume  the  regular  duties  of  his  profession.  He 
was  waiting.  The  appointment  was  delayed,  but  the 
king's  promise  was  passed,  and  there  could  be  no  doubt 
it  would  be  fulfilled.  He  even  announced  his  impending 
resignation  to  the  consuls.  It  would  have  been  unbecom- 
ing in  him,  he  thought,  to  quit  the  service  of  those,  who 
on  the  whole  had  treated  him  with  much  respect,  without 
requesting  his  conge  in  form.  Not  to  be  idle\  he  gave 
a  voluntary  course  of  greek,  and  allowed  the  duties  of 
rector,  which  he  detested,  to  be  imposed  on  him  for  a 
short  time.  He  paid  a  visit  of  a  fortnight  to  de  Fresne  at 
Castres.  All  this  while  not  intermitting  his  daily  study, 
which  turned,  among  other  things,  on  Theophrastus'  bo- 
tanical works,  Dionysius  of  HaHcarnassus,  and  S.  Jerome. 
The  third  volume  of  the  works  of  S.  Jerome  brought  him 
to  the  close  of  the  year  1598,  still  the  expected  nomination 
did  not  arrive. 

The  long  delay  seemed  ominous;  but  at  last,  January 
24,  1599,  after  supper,  the  expected  packet  was  put  into 
his  hands.  But  it  was  no  nomination  to  a  professorship, 
or  to  any  office  whatever.  It  was  simply  an  order,  under 
the  sign-manual,  to  leave  Montpellier,  and  to  hasten  to 
Paris,  '  where  it  is  our  intention  to  employ  you  in  the  pro- 
fession of  classical  letters  in  the  university.'  The  letter 
missive  did  not  even  assign  any  stipend  or  pension,  but 
only  intimated  that  such  a  stipend,  as  well  as  the  expenses 
of  removal,  would  be  forthcoming.  The  original,  which 
was  preserved  by  Casaubon  among  his  papers,  and  printed 
by  Meric  in  his  '  Pietas,'  ran  as  follows  :— 
'  Monsieur  de  Casaubon, 

'Ayant  dehbere  de  remettre  sus  I'Universite  de  Paris, 

I  Ephem.  p.  102  :  '  Ne  otiosi  essemus.' 

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122  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

et  d'y  attirer  pour  cest  effect  le  plus  de  savans  person- 
nages  qu'il  me  sera  possible ;  sachant  le  bruit  que  vous 
avez  d'estre  aujourd'huy  des  premiers  de  ce  nombre ;  je 
me  suis  resolu  de  me  servir  de  vous,  pour  la  profession 
des  bonnes  Lettres,  en  laditte  Universite,  et  vous  ay,  a 
ceste  fin,  ordonne  tel  appointement,  que  je  m'assure  que 
vous  vous  en  contenterez.  Partant  vous  ne  faudrez  incon- 
tinent la  presente  receue  de  vous  preparer  a  vous  ache- 
miner  par  dega,  pour  vous  y  rendre  le  plustost  que  le 
pourrez  faire,'  &c.  &c. 

To  remove  all  difficulty  with  regard  to  his  present 
employment,  the  consuls  of  MontpelHer  were  specially 
enjoined  to  release  him  from  his  engagement,  and  to  offer 
every  facility  for  his  departure.  On  February  26,  having 
previously  sent  off  his  wife,  children,  and  books,  he  bade 
farewell  to  Montpellier,  from  which  he  said  he  carVied 
away  nothing  but  a  good  character.  ^Yet  it  was  not 
without  regret  that  he  parted  from  kind  friends,  and  a 
flourishing  protestant  community,  to  go  out  into  an 
unfriendly  catholic  world. 

He  deviated  from  the  direct  route  to  Lyon  to  visit  his 
mother,  who  was  settled  at  Bourdeaux  in  Dauphine.  There 
he  found  his  wife  and  children,  and  tasted  a  ^ '  wonderful 
sweetness '  in  being  again  among  his  family  friends.  Yet 
though  only  there  two  days,  he  managed  each  day  to  get 
a  '  few  hours '  for  study,  and  read  Du  Plessis'  book  on  the 
'Eucharist'  just  published.  He  saw  again  Crest,  where 
he  had  been  brought  up,  and  where,  in  the  Terror,  his 
father  had  been  minister.  On  approaching  Lyon  he  met 
de  Vic,  who  had  come  out  to  meet  him,  and  who  would 
not  suffer  him  to  go  to  an  inn,  but  received  him  and  his 
whole  household  into  his  hotel. 

He  reached  Lyon,  en  route  for  Paris,  March  7,  1599. 

'  Ephem.  p.  136:   'Non  sine  mcErore  urbem  nostri  amantem  reliquimus,  floren- 
tissimam  ibi  ecclesiam  non  sine  gemitu,  tenellam  filiolam  non  sine  suspiritibus.' 
'  Ephem.  p.  138  :  '  Mira  suavitate.' 


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in.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  123 

Instead  of  continuing  his  journey,  however,  he  remained 
at  Lyon,  and  chiefly  in  de  Vic's  house,  nearly  twelve 
months.  It  was  not  till  February  28,  1600,  that  he  at 
last  set  out  for  Paris.  Of  this  delay,  in  spite  of  the 
urgency  of  the  letter  missive,  which  had  ordered  him 
'immediately  on  the  receipt  of  these  presents'  to  repair 
to  Paris,  there  seems  no  satisfactory  account  to  be  given 
in  his  letters  or  diary.  That  de  Vic  persuaded  him  to 
await  the  king's  visit  to  Lyon,  where  he  was  expected : 
that  he  had  to  make  two  journeys  to  Geneva  about  his 
father-in-law's  affairs :  that  he  resolved  upon  printing  his 
'  Observations '  at  Lyon — these  reasons  are  at  different 
times  alleged,  but  are  insufficient  to  account  for  his  con- 
duct. Besides  the  contumelious  neglect  of  the  royal  man- 
date, he  was  incessantly  urged  by  the  letters  of  the  Paris 
friends,  severely  blaming  his  unreasonable  procrastina- 
tion^, and  his  indifference  to  a  favour  which  had  cost 
them  so  much  solicitation.  As  for  the  printing  of  the 
Athenaeus,  which  he  repeatedly  assigns  as  the  object  of 
his  stay  in  Lyon,  he  would  have  much  preferred  to  have 
had  it  done  in  Paris.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  a  printer 
was  found  for  it  at  Lyon,  where  there  were  no  greek 
compositors,  and  where  it  was  very  badly  done  when  it 
was  done. 

The  true  explanation  of  Casaubon's  seeming  wayward- 
ness is,  I  beUeve,  that  at  Lyon  it  began  to  dawn  upon 
him,  that  a  condition  was  to  be  attached  to  the  appoint- 
ment now  held  out  to  him ;  that  he  was  to  purchase  a  pro- 
fessorship, as  Henri  iv.  had  the  crown,  by  abjuration. 
It  is  impossible  to  doubt,  nor  did  Scaliger  doubt  ^  that  the 
Paris  friends  acted  in  good  faith,  and  were  quite  content 
to  have  Casaubon  among  them,  all  calvinist  as  he  was. 
But  they  could  only  persuade  and  sohcit.  Those  who 
were  nearer  the  king,  those  who  had  the  bestowal  of  royal 

1  Ep.  191 :  '  Amici  nostram  moram  increpantes  Lutetiam  conviciis  vocant.' 

2  Seal.  Ep.  50. 

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124  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

favour,  were  of  another  sort.  Du  Perron  and  the  cathoHc 
junta  would  not  give  gratis.  From  the  first,  they  resolved 
to  dangle  the  professorship  before  his  eyes,  but  not  to 
bestow  it,  till  they  had  the  recantation.  This  is  the  expla- 
nation of  the  mysterious  language  of  the  mandate,  which 
calls  him  to  Paris  to  profess  classics,  yet  does  not  appoint 
him  professor.  Nor  was  it  only  the  knavish  section  of  the 
party  which  beset  him.  De  Vic  and  Madame  de  Vic,  out 
of  pure  concern  for  his  eternal  welfare,  prevailed  upon 
him  to  talk  over  the  disputed  points  with  two  capuchins. 
Madame  de  Vic  endeavoured  to  inveigle  him  into  being 
present  at  mass,  just  out  of  curiosity,  to  see  a  ceremony  he 
had  never  seen  in  his  Hfe.  She  thought,  in  her  goodness 
of  heart,  that  it  might  be  blessed  to  him. 

From  this  time  a  report  began  to  spread,  that  Casaubon 
was  preparing  to  '  go  over.'  Conversions  were  the  fashion 
of  the  day.  From  the  great  ladies  of  the  court,  down  to 
the  meanest  monk,  good  catholics  were  competing  eagerly 
for  the  credit  of  bringing  souls  into  the  church.  The 
'  convertisseurs'  were  incessantly  at  their  work.  An  abun- 
dant harvest  of  success  rewarded  their  efforts.  All  places 
of  profit  or  distinction  being  reserved  for  catholics,  abjura- 
tion became  the  necessary  step  to  preferment.  The  skill 
of  the  converter  consisted  only  in  humouring  the  self- 
respect  of  the  convert.  He  heard  a  solemn  dispute,  was 
overpowered  by  argument  and  quotation,  submitted  him- 
self to  instruction,  went  into  retreat  for  a  week,  and  came 
out  whitewashed.  The  ascendancy  in  opinion,  and  conse- 
quent mastery  in  controversy,  which,  forty  years  before, 
had  been  on  the  side  of  the  protestants,  had  now  passed  to 
the  catholics.  Daniel  Charaier  says^  of  pere  Coton : 
'  Reboul  had  represented  to  me  Coton  as  not  only  learned 
but  modest.  And  in  fact,  when  I  came  to  have  to  do  with 
him,  I  found  him  more  temperate  and  reasonable  than 
loyolites  in  general.    Still  he  too  had  adopted  that  attitude, 

'  Epp.  Jesuit.  Praef. 

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in.]  MONTPELUER.      1596-1599.  135 

which  all  Jesuits  assume  in  their  intercourse  with  us,  that 
of  laying  down  the  law  as  a  teacher  to  a  pupil,  not  disputing 
with  us  on  equal  terms.'  For  an  illustrious  heretic  a  public 
conference  would  be  arranged,  where  bishops  and  cardi- 
nals sat  in  imposing  array.  For  those  of  lower  degree, 
a  dispute  between  a  Jesuit  and  a  minister  was  a  sufficient 
occasion  for  the  would-be  convert  to  declare  that  he  was 
convinced  of  his  error. 

Casaubon  presented  an  obvious  mark  for  this  game, 
from  his  reputation  and  his  personal  character.  He  was 
now  confessedly  the  most  eminent  living  scholar  after 
Scaliger;  his  name  was  known  wherever  greek  letters 
were  read.  As  it  was  well  understood  that  Scaliger  was 
impossible,  Casaubon's  conversion  was  the  highest  prize 
of  the  kind  which  was  open  to  the  efforts  of  the  '  con- 
vertisseurs.'  The  personal  character  of  the  man,  of  an 
anxious  piety :  not  enthusiastic,  but  devout  to  depression  ; 
though  a  sincere  huguenot,  yet  moderate  and  equitable 
towards  catholics ;  too  learned  not  to  be  aware  of  the 
many  weak  points  in  the  calvinistic  armour;  a  weakness 
of  will  proceeding  from  mingled  ill  health,  amiability,  and 
excessive  reading ;  all  these  characteristics  were,  in  engi- 
neering phrase,  in  favour  of  the  attack.  More  especially 
his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  greek  and  latin  fathers, 
and  a  sentiment  for  christian  antiquity,  indicated  an  affinity 
for  catholic  rather  than  calvinistic  divinity.  The  con- 
temptuous treatment  of  antiquity  on  the  part  of  the  pro- 
testants  was  not  only  unbecoming;  it  was  a  historical 
error,  an  error  which  revolted  those  to  whom  antiquity 
was  better  known.  These  facts,  which  soon  became  known 
in  the  Jesuit  camp,  always  well  served  with  intelligence, 
afforded  ground  for  hope,  that  Casaubon's  case  was  one 
where,  instead  of  the  usual  comedy  of '  coming  over'  being 
enacted,  a  real  conversion  might  be  effected.  His  having 
quitted  Geneva,  and  having  come  into  France ;  his  being 
the  close  friend  of  Canaye  de  Fresne,  who  was  known  by 

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Ja6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  Jesuits  (though  Casaubon  was  innocent  of  it)  to  be 
preparing  to  desert;  his  quitting  calvinistic  MontpeUier  to 
estabHsh  himself  in  fanatical  Lyon,  in  the  house  of  the 
catholic  de  Vic;  and  his  being  known  to  be  expecting 
preferment  from  the  court ; — these  were  certainly  circum- 
stances calculated  not  only  to  give  hopes  to  the  Jesuit 
faction,  but  to  create  an  impression  on  the  public  at  large, 
that  Casaubon  was  about  to  do  what  everybody  else,  who 
wished  to  get  on,  was  doing  around  him. 

Casaubon  was  deeply  concerned  when  he  found  that 
reports  of  this  nature  began  to  be  credited  among  his  own 
co-religionists.  ^Even  during  his  residence  at  Lyon,  he 
had  to  suffer  from  the  suspicions  of  his  friends,  who  hinted 
that  he  was  about  to  leave  a  losing  cause.  If  ever  man 
was  sincere  in  his  belief,  Casaubon  was.  His  after  con- 
duct proves  that  he  was  prepared  to  make  any  sacrifice 
for  it.  But  though  his  conduct  was  firm  and  consistent, 
the  publication  of  his  private  diary  has  revealed  to  us,  that 
there  was  a  moment  when  his  mind  wavered.  The  traces 
indeed  are  slight,  but  they  are  sufficient.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise.  Belief  is  so  much  a  matter  of  sympathy  and 
contagion,  that  when  all  we  hear  and  see  goes  one  way, 
we  receive  an  insensible  impulse  in  the  same  direction. 
An  uneducated  mind,  in  which  religious  belief  is  a  mere 
matter  of  habit,  might  not  be  affected  by  epidemic  Catho- 
licism. But  Casaubon  had  apphed  his  knowledge  to  the 
grounds  of  his  faith.  Examining  and  re-examining  as  he 
was  compelled  to  do,  the  balance  of  the  evidence  must  at 
different  times  have  seemed  to  be  on  opposite  sides. 
There  was  no  doubt  on  which  side  his  interest  lay.  When 
he  finally  decided  against  his  interest,  he  gave  the  highest 
evidence  man  can  give  of  a  sincere  love  of  truth.  These 
traces  of  momentary  wavering  are  a  measure  of  the  force 

'  Ep.  211 :  among  the  reasons  he  assigns  for  wishing  to  get  away  from  Lyon, 
one  is  :  '  Odium  nostri  conflatum  in  animis  plerorumque  tSiv  tA.  fjnirepa  tppovoiv- 
Tcuj',  cum  in  hac  urbe  (Lyon)  tum  in  vicinis  provinciis.' 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  127 

of  the  catholic  reaction  in  France.  As  part  of  Casaubon's 
biography,  they  must  be  read  in  connection  with  the  whole 
of  his  confessions.  The  pages  of  the  diary  during  the  fol- 
lowing years  of  trial  continue  to  abound  in  evidence,  as 
well  of  humble  piety  as  of  single-eyed  love  of  what  seemed 
to  him  truth.  We  quote  one  entry.  On  his  forty-third 
birthday  Casauboh  enters  as  follows^: — 

'  I  am  not  excusing  my  act  (not  going  to  church).  If 
religious  feeling  were  as  vigorous  in  my  mind  as  it  ought 
to  be,  neither  the  impediment  to  which  I  allude,  nor  yet 
more  serious  difficulties,  would  have  interfered  with  the 
journey.  I  here  confess  to  thee,  my  God,  what  is  the 
truth,  zeal  for  religion  is  languid  both  in  my  own  mind, 
and  among  those  belonging  to  me.  Do  thou,  O  merciful 
Father,  stir  it  up,  and  kindle  it  into  flame.  Make  us  so 
to  live  henceforward  that  those,  who  are  endeavouring 
with  so  much  pertinacity  to  pervert  me,  may  know  that 
thou,  O  God,  wilt  not  suffer  our  faith  even  to  be  im- 
perilled.' 

The  suspicions  of  those  of  his  own  church  were  not  the 
only  vexations  which  he  had  to  support  during  his  stay  in 
Lyon.  He  had  with  difficulty  found  a  printer^  for  his 
'  Observationes,'  and  de  Vic  had  generously  advanced  a 
portion  of  the  expense.  The  remainder  was  to  be  found 
by  the  author  himself,  who  embarked  his  slender  savings 
in  the  enterprise.  Of  profit  there  was  no  thought,  but  he 
might  look  forward  to  be  repaid  his  outlay  by  the  sale  of 
the  book.     He  found,  in  Antoine  de  Harsy^,  one  of  those 


'  Ephem.  p.  333. 

'^  Ep.  1020 :  '  Parum  greecis  edendis  assuete  sunt  operae  Lugdunenses.'  A 
compositor  was  expected  to  know  latin,  in  order  to  set  it  up  in  type.  Corranus 
complains  of  the  London  printers  in  1574,  Zurich  Letters,  2''.  ser.  p.  254  :  '  So 
many  errors  have  crept  in  through  the  carelessness  of  the  printer,  who  is  un- 
acquainted with  latin,  as  are  almost  all  the  printers  in  this  country.' 

»  Antoine  de  Harsy,  son,  or  grandson  of  Denis  de  Harsy,  also  printer,  f  1614, 
after  which  the  business  was  carried  on  by  his  widow.  Ephem.  291 :  '  Curis 
anxius  propter  improbitatem  istius  Harsii,  quae  miris  modis  me  vexat  per 
somnum,  scelus,  dum  edito  libro  inhiat,  et  pecuniis  quas  ibi  posuimus.' 


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ia8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

cormorants,  who  about  this  time  began  to  sit  hard  by  the 
tree  of  knowledge.  The  publisher  hitherto  had  been  the 
friend  and  co-operator  of  the  author,  even  when  not  author 
in  his  own  person.  Casaubon's  Athenaeus  is  an  early 
instance  of  spohation,  though  there  was  not  here  the  usual 
excuse  that  the  publisher  was  risking  his  capital  on  the 
credit  of  the  author's  name.  Madame  de  Harsy,  who 
transacted  the  business  in  her  husband's  absence,  was 
even  more  extortionate.  As  soon  as  she  ascertained  that 
Casaubon  was  obliged  to  leave  Lyon  on  a  certain  day, 
she  took  advantage  of  it  to  mulct  him  of  a  large  sum  as 
extra  charges.  He  might  have  resisted  in  the  law  courts, 
where  he  knew  the  judge  would  have  befriended  him. 
But  he  could  not  postpone  his  departure,  and  was  obliged 
to  pay.  The  pangs  which  Casaubon  suffered  from  these 
Lyonnese  sharks  will  be  understood,  when  we  remember 
how  he  had  toiled  in  the  compilation  of  his  volume,  and 
what  hopes  he  had  rested  on  its  production.  This  was  all 
that  was  wanting  as  the  fitting  close  of  the  scholar's  toil — 
the  last  chapter  in  the  calamities  of  authors. 

Nor  did  his  pecuniary  losses  end  here.  Henri  Estienne 
had  died  intestate.  While  Casaubon  superintended  the 
printing  of  his  Athenaeus,  Madame  Casaubon  went  to 
Geneva  to  look  after  her  share  of  her  father's  property. 
Henri's  affairs  were  found  to  be  more  involved  even  than 
had  been  feared,  and  it  became  necessary  that  Casaubon 
should  interrupt  his  edition,  and  make  first  one,  and  then 
a  second,  journey  to  Geneva,  in  the  business.  The  affair 
dragged  on  in  the  courts  till  1607.  Casaubon  persisted  in 
accusing  the  council,  and  even  the  Genevese  in  general,  of 
conspiring  to  rob  him,  and  sometimes  breaks  out  into 
frantic  denunciations  of  the  'hypocrisy  and  pharisaism 
which  was  covered  by  the  long  cloak.'  Even  if  he  did 
not  exaggerate  his  loss,  he  could  not  on  cool  reflection 
implicate  the  city  of  Geneva  in  the  decision  of  a  judicial 
tribunal,  even  supposing  that  decision  to  have  been  unjust. 

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III.]  MONTPELLIER.     1596-1599.  129 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  he  entered,  and  only  for  the 
second  time  in  his  hfe^,  his  father-in-law's  library.  '  Such 
a  wreck  of  vast  projects !  A  memorial  of  stupendous 
labour ! '  he  exclaimed  on  seeing  it.  He  used  his  influence 
with  the  co-heirs  to  allow  the  mss.  to  pass  to  Paul  Estienne, 
who  inherited  the  greek  press  under  his  grandfather's  will. 
The  printed  books  were  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  credi- 
tors. Sold  for  a  song,  Casaubon  says.  The  matrixes  of 
the  greek  types  remained  in  pawn  in  the  hands  of  le  Clerc. 
With  true  disinterestedness — for  if  there  was  anything 
which  Casaubon  coveted  it  was  a  greek  ms. — he  asked 
nothing  for  himself,  but  begged  Paul  to  lend  Hoeschel 
a  transcript  of  Photius  which  he  found  in  Henri's  hand- 
writing. In  telling  Hoeschel  what  he  had  done,  Casaubon 
writes^:  '  If  I  ask  you  when  you  have  occasion  to  mention 
Henri  Estienne,  to  do  so  with  as  much  respect  as  you 
can,  you  will  think  I  wrong  your  goodness  of  heart. 
I  know  your  excellent  disposition,  but  you  are  aware  that 
it  is  the  fashion,  now  he  is  gone,  to  run  him  down  and 
insult  his  memory.  I  am  not  going  to  justify  his  moody 
and  irascible  temper :  some  of  his  latest  things  I  could 
wish  unwritten.  He  had,  indeed,  many  faults;  but  how 
truly  great  he  was  in  letters,  even  had  I  not  known 
before,  I  should  have  learnt  on  entering  his  library,  where 
I  saw  incredible  monuments  of  learning,  and  the  love 
of  it.'  What  Casaubon  was  foregoing  for  himself,  may  be 
understood  from  the  fact,  that  he  had  never  read  Photius' 
Bibliotheca,  which  was  not  then  printed,  and  knew  that  it 
must  contain  some  things  which  would  have  been  of  use 
to  him  in  his  notes  on  Athenasus^. 
To  these  annoyances  was  added  another,  brought  upon 

'  In  October,  1598,  he  tells  Scaliger,  ep.  175:  'Volo,  tamen,  scias,  nondum 
mihi  visam  Stephani  bibliothecam  ;  non  dico  ab  ejus  obitu,  sed  omnino  invisam 
earn  esse  nobis.' 

^  Ep.  186:  'Quantus  ille  vir  (Henri  Estienne)  fuerit  in  Uteris,  si  nesciebam 
ante,  potui  adfatim  discere,  ex  iis  quae  reperta  sunt  mihi  in  bibliotheca.' 

^  Ep.  197. 

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130  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

him  by  his  good  nature.  He  had  taken  into  his  family  his 
nephew,  Pierre  Chabanes.  This  youth,  at  once  stupid 
and  froward,  could  not  be  induced  to  behave  himself  in 
de  Vic's  family.  He  was  always  quarrelling  with  the 
servants^,  and  once  nearly  set  the  house  on  fire  by  throw- 
ing hot  coals  at  them  in  the  kitchen.  The  circumstance 
only  brought  into  relief  the  sweet  temper  of  Madame  de 
Vic,  who  was  content  with  a  gentle  reprimand,  and  would 
not  allow  Casaubon  to  turn  the  young  mule  out  of  the 
nouse  within  the  hour,  as  he  proposed  to  do.  Indeed,  he 
kept  the  nephew  with  him  till  his  death,  which  happened 
in  1602.  In  spite  of  his  bad  disposition,  his  patient  uncle 
mourns  for  his  loss,  as  for  that  of  a  child  of  his  own  ^. 

De  Vic  continued  to  be  the  adviser  by  whom  all  Cas- 
aubon's  plans  were  now  directed^. 

'  Ephem.  p.  160  ;  '  Iterum  meus  petulantissimus  dSeA.^iSoCs,  crux  et  mors  mea, 
animo  vilissimo  cum  famulo  rixam  contraxit.' 

"  [For  his  death  see  infra  p.  227,  and  Ephem.  p.  418.] 

'  Ephem.  p.  233  :  '  Cujus  consiliis  naviculam  nostram  gubernari  par  est.' 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECTION   III. 

Note  A.  p.  8i. 

Deed  of  Appointment  as  Professor  at  Montpellier. 

Burney  Mss.  367.  f.   127. 

Lan  mil  cinq  cens  quatre  vingt  et  dix  sept  et  le  douziesme 
Jour  du  moys  de  Mars  dans  la  maion  Consull'  de  Motpell''. 
En  personne  honnorab'  hommes  messieurs  mre  Pierre  Cavassin 
Dr  es  droictz,  mfe  Anthonie  Atgier  S'.  de  la  Bastide,  Anthonie 
de  Burgens,  Bernardin  Durant,  Imbert  Coste  et  Anthoine 
Barrat  Consul'  de  la  Ville  de  Montpell'  lesquelz  de  leur  gre 
ensuivant  les  precedates  deliberacons  du  Conoii  (jg  Vingt 
quatre  avec  RatiiBcaon  de  ce  qua  este  faict  et  commence  et  de 
tout  ce  quy  sest  passd  pour  avoir  appell6  et  plusieurs  fois  eit 
faict  venir  en  fin  de  la  ville  de  Geneve  en  ceste  ville  Monsieur 
mfe  I  sac  Cazaubon  professeur  aus  langues  et  bonnes  Ires  pour 
y  faire  doresnavat  sa  residence  et  demeurance  tant  qu'il  plera  a 
Dieu  pour  y  lire  publicquement  et  faire  excercice  publicq'  de 
ses  langues  et  bonnes  Ires  soubz  les  Pactes  et  condicons  a  luy 
acordes  et  y  teneues  en  lacte  que  luy  a  este  envoyee  par  S"" 
Denis  Pasturel  marchand  de  ceste  ville  envoye  expres  devers 
luy  pour  le  conduire  a  faire  lesd'  voyage  qui  sont  telz  que 
sensuivent.  Premierement  que  les  d'  Sieures  Consuls  suivant 
lad'  desliberacon  du  con^il  du  vingt  septie  Octob'  dernier  passe 
seront  teneues  comme  ont  promis  et  promettant  aud'  S"". 
Casaubon  present  et  aceptant  pour  son  entretenement  et  gages 
annelz  luy  faire  payer  la  somme  de  deux  cents  soixante  six 
escus  deux  tiers  payable  par  anticipacio  en  deux  thermes  au 
commencement'  de  chascun  demy  annee.  Lesquels  gaiges 
courront  et  ont  commence  des  le  jour  de  son  depart  dud' 
Geneve  que  feust  le  neufmesme  de  Decemb'  dernier  sans  en 
ce  comprendre  to  les  fraiz  et  despences  par  eulx  desja  faicts  et 
fournis  a  la  conduicte  dud'  sieur  Casaubon  de  sa  famille  et 

K  2 

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133  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  III. 

bibliotheque  despuis  lad'  ville  de  Geneve  jusques  en  castes 
ville  comma  luy  auroit  aste  promis  et  acorde  p  led'  Conseill  et 
ausquels  frais  a  esta  desja  satisfaict  aussi  seront  teneus  lesd' 
Siaurs  Consuls  comma  lis  ont  promis  et  promettent  au  non  de 
touta  la  ville  at  communaulte  de  luy  donner  at  faire  approver 
dans  son  logis  chascung  an,  la  quantite  de  cent  quintaulx  de 
bois  da  valleur  et  luy  fournir  una  maison  et  logis  commode  po^ 
son  habitacon  et  dameuran'  tant  quil  servira  a  la  ville,  aut^ 
despens  dicalla  ^o'  lameublement  de  laquelle  maion  pour  une 
fois  suivant  la  qua  luy  auroit  este  acorda  lasd'  Siaurs  Consuls 
luy  auroiant  faict  payer  ainsi  qua  lad'  S"^.  Casaubon  a  confesse 
la  somma  de  cant  escus  suivant  la  mandament  que  luy  auroit 

asta  daspech6  p  lasd'  Siaurs  Consuls  sur commis 

a  la  levee  da  la  cour  dung  sous  po^^.  chung  quintal  sel  ordonne 
po^.  I'establissement  dung  College  de  ceste  ville,  dont  il  sera 
content,  et  a  quitte  la  d'  ville  at  communaulte  moyenant  lesquelz 
susd'  pactes  led'  S"".  de  Casaubon  a  promis  et  promet  ausd' 
Siaurs  consuls  ville  at  communaulte  de  bien  et  deuement  verser 
en  sa  profession  en  la  d'  ville,  et  de  bien  et  deuement  faire  son 
dabvoir  a  la  lecture  dasd'  languas  et  bonnes  Ires,  tout  ainsi  qu'il 
a  desja  commence  de  faire  comme  aussi  a  aste  conveneu  et 
acorde,  que  ny  lad'  ville  ny  lad'  S''.  Casaubon  ne  se  pourront 
oncques  de  present  ny  a  la  venir  despartir  du  pnt  contract  que 
dung  mutuel  et  reciproque  consentement.  Et  po'^  tout  ce  dessus 
acorder  et  server  restituo  de  to'',  despens  domaiges  et  intherests 
lasd*  Siaurs  Consuls  ont  oblige  tous  at  chacungs  las  biens  da  la 
communaulte  de  lad'  villa,  et  led'  S^^.  Casaubon  les  siens  propres 
meubles  at  imaubles  present  et  advenir  que  pourca  faire  ont 
soubzines  aulz  rigueurs  des  cours  de  Monsieur  le  gouverneur 
presidial  petit  sul  (?)  royal  ordinance  dud'  Montpell'.  et  aides 
requizes  et  necessaires  In  vue  chune  dicelles  et  ainsi  lont 
promis  et  dirre  et  Renon  a  tous  droictz  et  loix  a  ce  dessus 
Eontrairas. 

Faict  et  recitte  dans  Motpell'^.  et  dans  la  Maison  Consull"^  en 
presence  de  S'^.  Fran'  Sartie  Borgeois,  Noble  Guillaume  .  .  .  et 
Sr.  Jean  Costier,  habitans  dans  Motpell"^.  soubz^^s  .  .  .  lesd' 
parties  a  loriginal,  et  moy  Pierre  Pesquet  Notar.  Royal  dud' 
Motpellier  soubz^e. 

Pesquet,  Note''. 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  III.  \'i,'}, 

Note  B.  p.  112. 

Maussac's  Toulouse  greek  editions  are :  Plutarchi  libellus  de 
fluviorum  et  montium  nominibus  .  .  .  Philip.  Jacob.  Maussacus 
recensuit,  latine  vertit,  et  notis  illustravit,  Tolosae,  ap.  Do- 
minicum  Bosc,  1615,  8" ;  Pselli  de  lapidum  virtutibus  libellus ; 
Philippus  Jacobus  Maussacus  primus  vulgavit,  latine  vertit,  et 
emendavit,  Tolosae,  typis  viduse  J.  Colomerii  regis  et  universi- 
tatis  typographi  sub  signo  nominis  Jesu,  1615,  8°;  Aristotelis 
Historia  De  Animalibus,  J.  C.  Scaligero  interprete,  1619. 

Hoffmann  assigns  the  first  edition  of  Scaliger's  'Aristotelis 
Hist.  Animal.'  to  the  year  1591,  which  would  be  earlier  evidence 
of  a  Greek  press  at  Toulouse.  But  this  date  is  an  error,  a  thing 
of  very  rare  occurrence  in  that  accurate  bibliographer.  Maussac 
published  the  '  Historia  Animal.'  for  the  first  time  in  1619. 


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IV. 

PARIS. 

1600-1610. 

1600.  De  Vic  was  now  in  Paris.  In  February  he  wrote 
despondingly  to  Casaubon  to  tell  him  that  all  past  promises 
were  forgotten  ;  that  his  friends  were  now  powerless  ;  that 
the  ultramontane  party  were  wholly  indifferent,  and  that 
in  short  he  was  not  to  look  to  the  court  for  anything. 
Casaubon,  having  long  made  up  his  mind  that  it  would  be 
so,  was  not  disconcerted  at  intelligence  which  was  no 
news,  but  continued  with  steady  perseverance  to  work  at 
his  Athenaeus.  A  fortnight,  however,  had  hardly  elapsed 
before  de  Vic  wrote  a  summons  to  him  to  come  to  Paris 
immediately,  without  explaining  his  reasons,  but  in  a  tone 
which  compelled  compHance.  On  February  28  he  took 
horse,  and  used  such  expedition  that,  notwithstanding  the 
badness  of  the  roads,  and  the  heavy  inundations,  he 
reached  de  Vic's  house  in  Paris  upon  the  seventh  day. 
He  was  admitted  to  an  audience,  and  received  with 
suspicious  courtesy  by  the  king  and  the  lords.  Henri 
again  repeated  what  he  had  said  about  employing 
Casaubon  in  the  '  restoration  of  the  university,'  and  the 
next  day,  in  council,  spontaneously  mentioned  Casau- 
bon's  name,  and  his  own  intentions.  Casaubon  received 
an  order  to  wait  upon  Monsieur  de  Rosny,  and,  as  an 
earnest  of  what  was  to  come,  received  a  gratification  of 
two  hundred  crowns.  After  this  nothing  further  was 
done;  he  remained  in  Paris,  apparently  forgotten  and 
useless,  separated  from  the  two  objects  of  his  affection. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  135 

his  family  and  his  books,  and  the  Lyon  press  at  a  stand- 
still. Of  course  reading  not  less,  but  even  more,  than 
usual.  For  he  was  now  in  a  land  of  books,  and  had 
besides  brought  along  with  him  in  his  baggage  the 
Photius  he  had  received  as  a  present  from  Hoeschel, 
which  he  now  read  for  the  first  time. 

In  the  midst  of  this  desultory  life,  he  was  surprised  by 
a  summons  from  the  king,  calling  him  to  Fontainebleau, 
where  the  court  then  was,  for  an  'affair  which  he  had 
much  at  heart.'  *  ^  M'^-  Cazobon,  Je  desire  vous  veoir  et 
vous  communiquer  ung  affaire  que  j'ay  fort  k  cueur ;  cest 
pourquoy  vous  ne  fauldrez  incontinent  la  presente  receue 
de  vous  acheminer  en  ce  lieu  et  vous  y  rendre  pour  le 
plus  tard  dimanche  au  soir,  et  m'asseurant  que  vous  n'y 
manquiez  je  ne  feray  celle  cy  plus  longue  que  pour  prier 
Dieu  qu'il  vous  ait  en  sa  s**  garde.  Ce  soir  de  Fontayne- 
bleau  ce  28"°°  jour  d'Avril  1600,  Henry  ^,' 

Casaubon  must  now  have  begun  to  understand  for  what 
purpose  he  had  been  brought  up  from  Lyon  in  such  hot 
haste. 

The  fashion  of  conferences,  and  their  adroit  management 
by  the  catholic  reaction,  has  been  already  noticed.  In  the 
earlier  days  of  the  religious  troubles,  a  conference  was  a 
bona  fide  attempt  to  come  to  an  understanding.  Such,  e.  g. 
had  been  the  colloquy  of  Poissy,  1561.  Afterwards,  when 
the  ascendancy  in  opinion  was  finally  secured  to  the 
catholics,  these  public  disputations  were  merely  blinds, 
under  cover  of  which  those  desirous  of  apostatizing  could 
decorously  effect  their  retreat.  It  may  seem  surprising 
that  the  huguenot  party,  after  so  much  experience, 
especially  after  the  farce  of  the  conference  of  Mantes, 
1593'  could  allow  themselves  to  be,  again  and  again, 
entrapped  in  the  same  way.  The  explanation  is  partly  to 
be  found  in  the  circumstance,  that,  while  the  catholics 
acted   with    the    unanimity   of  an  organised  party,  the 

'  Preserved  by  Casaubon  among  his  papers,  and  now  in  Burney  MSS.  367. 


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136  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

protestants,  dispirited  and  dispersed,  had  no  centre  of 
policy.  Thus  they  repeated  their  mistakes,  in  the  different 
provinces,  with  that  want  of  tactic  which  always  attends 
a  losing  game. 

The  conference  of  Fontainebleau,  1600,  was  the  most 
tragical  of  these  self-imposed  defeats,  because  it  struck  a 
noble  soul. 

Philippe  de  Mornay,  seigneur  du  Plessis  Marly,  is  justly 
described  by  Voltaire  as  '  the  greatest  and  most  virtuous 
man  of  the  protestant  party.'  It  is  little  to  say  of  him, 
that  he  was  superior  to  personal  interest  \  for  merely 
to  remain  protestant  was  now  to  sacrifice  interest  to 
conscience.  Clear  of  the  least  suspicion  of  making  a  tool 
of  his  party,  he  had  staked  life  and  fortune  in  the  cause  of 
Henri  iv.  None  of  his  adherents  had  rendered  the  king 
such  services  as  had  Mornay.  Besides  his  personal 
exertions,  he  had  nearly  ruined  himself  by  loans,  still 
unrepaid.  With  a  catholic  education,  Mornay  had  become 
a  protestant  before  he  was  twenty,  by  study  of  the  con- 
troversy. He  continued,  notwithstanding  his  public 
engagements,  to  read  theology,  and  collected  a  valuable 
library  from  the  dispersion  of  the  monastic  treasures. 
Had  he  not  been  grand  seigneur,  he  would  have  passed 
for  learned.  He  talked  well,  adding  to  the  accent  of  a 
gentleman  the  authority  of  knowledge.  Du  Perron,  who 
had  learning,  but  with  the  servile  manners  of  a  court 
chaplain,  envied  him  what  he  tauntingly  calls  ^  his 
'  eloquence  de  Pericles.'  In  1593,  Mornay  was  too  much 
of  a  statesman  not  to  see  that  abjuration  was  a  political 
necessity  for  Henri  iv.     But  he  had  understood  that  the 

'  Even  in  the  caricature  of  the  '  Henriade,'  where  the  figures  of  the  wars  of 
religion  are  set  up  in  gilt  gingerbread  in  the  taste  of  the  '  grand  sifecle,'  the  noble 
lineaments  of  the  calvinist  seigneur  stand  out  as  if  incapable  of  disfigurement. 
See  the  lines,  chant  9 ;  '  Son  exemple  instruisait  bien  mieux  que  ses  discours  ; 
Les  solides  vertus  furent  ses  seuls  amours,'  etc.  There  is  a  good  monograph  on 
Mornay  by  Eugene  Poitou  in  the  Revue  de  VAnjou,  i.  322  (Angers,  1854). 

^  Actes  de  la  Conference,  etc. 


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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610.  137 

royal  conversion  was  to  carry  with  it  such  a  reform  of  the 
abuses  of  the  church,  as  might  have  healed  the  religious 
schism ;  a  reform  of  such  a  kind  as  had  taken  place  in 
England.  He  never  expected  to  see  Henri  of  Navarre  go 
in  for  rampant  ultramontanism.  The  crafty  Bearnais  took 
care  to  encourage  his  illusion,  and  not  to  undeceive  his 
friend,  till  he  could  do  without  him.  At  the  stiffnecked 
Calvinism  of  a  mere  soldier  like  d'Aubigne,  Henri  could 
afford  to  laugh ;  the  consistent  integrity  of  a  statesman 
like  Mornay  was  a  standing  reproach  to  him.  He  was  not 
sorry  for  an  opportunity  of  discrediting  his  old  adherent, 
and  comrade  in  arms.  Such  an  opportunity  was  now 
afforded  him. 

Mornay  had,  unfortunately,  written  a  book.  He  had 
always  been  fond  of  writing,  as  well  as  reading,  theology, 
and  he  had  now  employed  the  leisure  which  his  retirement 
from  politics  gave  him,  in  compiling  a  controversial  \ 
treatise  on  the  eucharist.  The  celebrity  of  the  author,  ^| 
and  the  fact  that  the  book  was  composed  in  french,  would 
have  sufficed  to  give  vogue  even  to  a  superficial  treatment 
of  the  reigning  controversy.  But  Mornay's  book  was  not  a  * 
fugitive  pamphlet.  It  was  a  solid  volume  of  888  pages 
8vo.  '  Opus  praestantissimum,'  said  Scaliger  1, '  and  better 
than  any  of  the  books  of  the  professed  theologians,  except 
those  of  Calvin  and  Beza.'  We  are  only  concerned  with 
the  citations.  These  amount  to  nearly  5000,  it  being  a  "i 
principal  object  of  the  book  to  show  that  the  Roman 
doctrines  of  the  mass,  etc.,  are  not  conformable  to  the 
opinions  of  the  fathers,  or  schoolmen.  Whatever  the 
merit  of  the  argument,  the  book  made  a  prodigious 
sensation.  It  occupied  aUke  the  pulpits  and  the  salons. 
The  clergy  were  enraged  to  find,  that  though  everything 
else  was  restored  to  them,  their  old  power  of  putting  down 
heretical  writings  by  force  was  not  yet  recovered.  They 
were   driven  to  the  miserable  resource  of  answering  it. 

'  Scaligerana  2°.  p.  161. 


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138'  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

They  put  on  Bulenger,  one  of  the  king's  chaplains ;  the 
Jesuits  made  Fronto  le  Due  and  Richeome,  two  of  their 
best  men,  write  answers.  The  strong  point  of  the  book 
was  its  citations.  Romanist  errors  were  to  be  crushed 
by  showing  that  they  were  novelties.  But  it  was  soon  dis- 
covered by  hostile  eyes,  that  in  this  show  of  vast  reading, 
lay  the  weakness  of  the  book.  The  refutations  all  took 
the  form  not  of  counter  argument,  but  of  exposure  of  false 
quotations.  The  general  public,  indifferent,  especially  in 
France,  to  mere  inexactitude,  persisted  in  regarding  the 
main  issue,  and  these  answers  did  not  avail  to  arrest  the 
effect  of  Mornay's  book.  He  himself  took  a  contemptuous 
tone  towards  his  critics.  '  I  did  not  know  that  "  episcopus 
miniatensis,"  meant  bishop  of  Mende.  I  should  have 
known  it.  I  translated  "  tiburiensis,"  "tiburtine,"  and 
"  concilium  Sardicense,"  "  council  of  Sardes."  I  should  not 
have  done  so,  but! — '  The  errors,  however,  were  so 
many  and  grave  that  they  invited  a  more  eclatant  exposure. 
For  this  the  man  was  Du  Perron. 

The  part  of  chaplain-man-of-the-world,  a  part  often 
played,  and  still  playable,  has  never  been  played  with 
more  success  than  by  Messire  Jacques  Davy  Du  Perron, 
bishop  of  Evreux,  senior  chaplain  to  the  king,  member  of 
both  councils,  grand  and  privy.  He  had  begun  life  as  a 
protestant,  but  went  over  early,  not  only  into  Catholicism, 
but  also  into  ultramontanism,  though  he  kept  this  in  the 
background  during  Henri's  life.  This  clever  talker  went 
about  everywhere  saying,  that  he  had  not  examined  the 
whole  of  the  big  book,  but  that,  as  far  as  he  had  gone,  he 
had  discovered  500  false  citations  in  it^.     He  had  really 


'  Du  Perron  told  Fra  Paolo,  Life  of  Father  Paul,  1651,  p.  61,  that  he  had  not 
only  found  the  Huguenots  '  without  learning  or  knowledge,  especially  in  the 
old  fathers,  in  councils  and  historians,  but  he  had  likewise  found  them  choleric 
and  impatient ;  whereupon,  whensoever  he  disputed  with  any  of  them,  his  chief 
aim  was  by  some  piquant  words,  or  argutenesse,  to  put  them  into  choler,  and 
that  being  done,  he  was  assured  to  carry  the  victory.'  Cf  with  this  Casaub. 
ep.  314.     It  was   out  of  modesty,  thinks   the   Carthusian  d'Argonne,  Vigneul 


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IV.]  PARIS.     i6oo-i6jo.  139 

spent  eighteen  months  in  carefully  getting  it  up,  and  was 
only  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  bring  his  criticism  to 
bear  on  it.  Just  at  this  time  Mornay  came  to  town.  He 
had  held  himself  retired  in  his  government  at  Saumur, 
in  his  dissatisfaction  at  the  catholic  policy,  into  which  the 
court  was  rushing.  He  now  came  to  Paris  to  endeavour 
to  recover  some  part  of  the  sums  owing  to  him.  To  sting 
the  veteran  into  sending  a  challenge  to  Du  Perron,  the 
princess  of  Orange  was  employed  as  picadore.  The 
daughter  of  Coligny,  the  widow  of  William  the  Silent, 
a  protestant,  but  who,  as  grande  dame,  was  equally 
powerful  in  catholic  circles,  offered  a  convenient  channel 
of  communication.  Mornay  was  made  to  believe  that  his 
personal  honour  was  implicated,  and  he  could  no  longer 
hold  back.  The  challenge  was  sent,  and  became  im- 
mediately, says  TEstoile^,  the  talk  of  the  town.  Henri  iv. 
took  it  up,  and  insisted  upon  having  a  debate  in  form 
at  Fontainebleau,  where  he  would  be  present  himself. 
The  matter  in  dispute  was  to  be  adjudicated  upon  by  six 
commissaries,  four  cathoHc,  and  two  protestant.  The 
catholic  commissioners  were  the  chancellor  Bellifevre, 
a  pronounced  ultramontane,  Francois  Pithou,  de  Thou, 
and  the  king's  physician  in  ordinary,  Jean  Martin^.  A 
masterly  stroke  was  the  nomination,  as  the  two  protestant 
commissioners,  of  Canaye  de  Fresne,  and  Casaubon.  The 
first  was  known  to  be  wanting  a  pretext  for  conversion, 
and  Casaubon,  known  to  be  honest,  was  supposed  to  be 
yielding.  It  was  in  vain  that  his  protestant  friends 
dissuaded ;  that  the  church  of  Paris  sent  Du  MouHn  to 
him,  imploring  him  to  abstain.     He  listened  to  de  Thou, 

Marville,   Melanges  d'Hisf.   i.  64,  that  the   cardinal  said  this.     He  must,   of 
course,  being  a  cardinal,  have  been  too  strong  in  controversy  for  heretics. 

1  L'Estoile,  Registre  Journal,  p.  312  :  '  Cette  dispute  fait  I'entretien  de  tout 
Paris  ;  dans  les  chaires,  dans  les  ecoles,  chez  les  grands  et  chez  les  petits,  on  ne 
parle  que  de  cet  appel.' 

2  This  was  the  Martin  who  wrote  against  Scaliger;  see  Bernays,  Joseph 
Justus  Scaliger,  p.  240. 

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I40 


ISAAC  CAS  A  [/BON.  [Sect. 


and  his  new  catholic  aUies,  who  were  equally  urgent  with 
him  to  consent  to  act.  He  went  to  Fontainebleau ;  he 
found  Henri  iv.  going  in  for  the  sport  with  his  usual 
energy.  The  king  could  think  of  nothing  else.  Difficulties 
arising  about  the  terms  of  the  disputation,  the  king  spent 
the  whole  of  the  third  of  May,  from  lo  a.m.  till  ii  p.m.,  in 
talking  them  over  with  the  parties.  He  sat  up  till  that 
late  hour  to  get  the  final  list  of  Du  Perron's  passages,  and 
fixed  8  a.m.  next  day  for  the  bearing. 

Amid  many  difficulties,  one  thing  was  agreed  on  on  all 
sides,  that  this  was  not  a  dispute  about  the  truth  of  doctrine, 
but  about  the  correctness  of  the  quotations  in  the  book '  De 
I'Eucharistie.'  The  nuntio  had  very  early  got  scent  of  what 
was  going  on,  and  had  declared^,  that  the  pope  would  not  suf- 
fer a  doctrinal  disputation  to  be  held  without  his  sanction. 
The  insult  to  the  crown  of  France  was  allowed  to  pass,  but 
such  a  disputation  had  never  been  in  contemplation.  The 
difficulties  were  raised  by  Mornay,  who,  feeling  that  he  had 
made  a  false  step,  insisted  on  impossible  conditions.  He 
first  demanded  that  a  list  of  all  the  500  impugned  passages 
should  be  rendered  to  him,  before  he  went  into  the  con- 
ference. He  said,  it  was  quite  likely  that  among  5000  or 
more  citations,  some  might  be  inexact.  If  these  were 
condemned,  and  the  conference  should  not  go  on  to  the 
examination  of  the  whole,  it  would  be  taken  for  granted 
that  the  whole  500  were  equally  faulty.  The  fact  was,  he 
suspected  that  the  bishop,  in  his  usual  style  of  bavardage, 
had  taken  a  little  latitude  with  the  number,  and  that,  though 
it  was  certain  he  had  found  some  mistakes,  he  could  not 
produce  anything  like  500.  Du  Perron,  as  his  adversary 
expected,  declined  to  give  any  hst  of  500,  and  Mornay 
refused  the  conference,  except  on  that  condition.  The 
king,  in  his  ardour,  ordered  that  the  inquest  into  the  book 
should  be  held,  whether  the  author  were  present  or  absent. 
But  this  would  have  ruined  the  scheme.  A  condemnation 
of  the  book,  in  Mornay's  absence,  would  have  produced 


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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610,  141 

no  effect  on  opinion  ;  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  he 
should  be  formally  heard  in  his  defence.  The  wise  heads 
therefore  advised  compromise,  and  after  some  negociation, 
Mornay  was  induced  to  abide  the  arbitration  on  condition 
that  50  alleged  falsities  were  produced  at  once.  Du  Perron, 
to  show  his  resources,  gave  in  a  list  of  61.  The  pourr 
parlers  had  taken  so  long,  that  it  was  11  p.m.,  before  the 
list  of  61  errors  was  handed  in  to  Mornay,  and  the  hearing 
was  to  be  at  8  next  morning.  He  had  to  sit  up  all  night 
to  verify  his  references,  and  to  borrow  for  the  purpose  the 
necessary  books  from  his  adversary,  who  had  brought  a 
waggon  load  with  him  from  the  chateau  de  Cond6.  He 
was  only  able  to  examine  19  of  the  passages.  Upon  these 
he  told  the  king  next  morning,  that '  he  was  ready  to  stake 
his  honour  and  life,  that  not  one  would  be  found  false.' 

Even  19  were  found  to  be  more  than  enough  occupation 
for  one  day.  Preparations  took  so  long,  that  the  confer- 
ence could  not  begin  till  after  dinner,  one  o'clock.  Though 
the  session  was  continued  till  nearly  7  p.m.,  there  was 
only  time  to  examine  9  citations.  The  scene  was  the 
council  chamber  at  Fontainebleau.  In  the  middle,  a  long 
table  of  porphyry  ;  at  one  end  of  which  sat  the  king.  On 
the  king's  right  towards  the  fire,  the  place  of  honour,  the 
bishop  of  Evreux ;  on  the  left  of  the  king,  in  the  second 
place, "the  sieur  de  Mornay.  Down  the  table,  the  commis- 
sioners ;  the  chancellor  first,  Casaubon  lowest ;  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  table,  the  reporters.  Behind  the  king's 
chair,  various  archbishops  and  bishops,  the  princes  of  the 
blood,  and  other  seigneurs  of  quality,  catholic  and  protes- 
tant.  The  room,  which  could  only  hold  about  200,  was 
filled  with  spectators.  The  books  were  in  a  neighbouring 
room,  and  were  brought  in  as  they  were  required.  Short 
opening  addresses  were  made  by  the  chancellor,  the  king, 
and  the  bishop  of  Evreux,  with  much  profession  of  impar- 
tiality, but  with  a  lofty  assumption  of  the  truth  of  the 
catholic  doctrine.    The  bishop,  indeed,  had  allowed  him- 


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142  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  .       [Sect. 

self  to  accent  the  words  '  false,'  '  falsification/  etc.  in  such 
a  way  as  to  bring  upon  himself  a  rebuke  from  the  king, 
who  desired  him  'to  abstain  from  irritating  language. 
They  were  here  to  judge  a  question  of  fact.' 

A  question  of  fact,  it  may  seem,  ought  to  have  been 
easily  determinable.  But  on  going  into  the  passages 
singly,  the  question  was  discovered  to  be  by  no  means  so 
simple  as  it  appeared.  The  bishop's  challenge  alleged  500 
'  faussetez  enormes  ...  si  evidentes  que  la  seule  ouverture 
des  livres  suffiroit  pour  le  convaincre.'  He  must  have 
been  disappointed,  when,  after  an  hour's  debate,  on  the 
first  passage  only,  he  could  not  convince  a  body  of  arbiters, 
of  whom  the  majority  were  catholic.  On  this  passage  they 
pronounced  a  '  non  liquet.'  The  charge  of  '  false  quota- 
tion '  was  an  ambiguous  charge.  Mornay  had  cited  his 
authorities  in  three  methods,  i.  He  had  given  the  whole 
passage  literally  ;  2.  He  had  abridged  the  passage  in  the 
words  of  the  original ;  or  3.  neglecting  the  words,  he  had 
presented  the  sense  of  the  author,  as  he  conceived  it,  in 
his  own  words.  Where  he  had  employed  the  second 
method,  that  of  abridgment,  dispute  arose  as  to  whether 
the  words  omitted  were,  or  were  not,  material.  Where 
he  had  adopted  the  third  method,  that  of  rendering  the 
substance  of  a  long  passage,  it  was  a  still  more  critical 
business  to  decide,  if  his  statement  fairly  represented  the 
author's  meaning.  So  far  was  it  from  being  a  mere  matter 
of  verification  of  citation,  that  it  was  impossible  even  to 
confine  the  disputation  to  a  judicial  comparison  of  the 
equivalents  of  propositions.  It  was  impossible  but  that 
some  truth  should  be  assumed  ;  and  the  truth  of  catholic 
doctrine  was  not  to  be  called  in  question. 

One  instance  may  serve  as  a  specimen.  Mornay  had 
alleged  some  sentences  of  Theodoret  ^  in  a  very  abridged 
form,  as  follows :  '  God  doeth  that  which  pleaseth  him, 
but  images  are  made,  such  as  it  pleaseth  men  to  make 

^  Theod.  Comm.  in  Ps,  113.    0pp.  i.  662. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  143 

them ;  they  have  abodes  of  sensible  matter,  but  they  have 
no  senses,  being  thus  of  less  worth  than  insects ;  and  it  is 
right  that  those  who  adore  them  should  lose  their  reason 
and  their  senses.'  If  the  judges  had  had  to  decide  only  if 
the  citation  thus  abridged  was  a  fair  abridgment  of  the 
original,  they  must  have  decided  that  it  was  so.  But 
Mornay  had  employed  the  passage  as  telling  against  what 
the  protestants  called  the  '  idolatry '  of  the  church  of 
Rome.  The  bishop  charged  him  with  having  concealed 
the  fact  that  Theodoret  was  here  speaking  of  the  '  idols '  of 
the  heathen,  not  of  the  '  images '  of  the  christians,  and  of 
having  omitted  words  which  disclosed  this  purpose.  As 
the  protestants  everywhere  were  in  the  habit  of  using  the 
scripture  denunciations  of  idolatry,  as  a  condemnation  of 
the  use  of  images  in  churches  ;  and  as  everybody  knew  that 
Ps.  113,  on  which  Theodoret  is  here  commenting,  speaks 
of  the  heathen  idols,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
Mornay  could  have  either  wished  to  conceal  the  fact,  or 
thought  there  was  anything  to  conceal.  The  decision  of 
the  judges  was  this  :  '  The  passage  of  Theodoret  must  be 
understood  of  the  pagan  idols,  not  of  the  images  of  the 
christians ;  and  that  this  appeared  by  words  which  had 
been  omitted  in  the  citation.'  This  decision  therefore  was 
not  a  condemnation  of  Mornay  for  false  quotation,  which 
was  the  point  submitted  to  the  tribunal.  It  was  in  effect 
a  theological  decision,  declaring  that  those  passages  of 
scripture  in  which  idols  are  denounced  are  not  appHcable 
to  images  in  christian  churches ;  deciding,  that  is,  this 
vexed  question  of  interpretation  in  favour  of  the  catholic, 
as  against  the  protestant,  expositor.  In  this  exegesis  the 
judges  may  have  been  right.  Casaubon  thought  so.  But 
it  was  not  the  question  they  had  to  decide ;  yet  by  con- 
curring in  their  decision,  he  allowed  it  to  appear  to  the 
world,  with  the  sanction  of  his  name,  that  Mornay  had 
been  convicted  of  a  '  faussete  6norme '  in  respect  of  a 
quotation. 

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144  ISAAC  CASAUSON.  LSect. 

Casaubon  ^  bitterly  repented  afterwards  of  the  false 
step  he  had  allowed  himself  to  take  ^,  especially  when  he 
saw  the  king's  letter  to  the  due  d'Epernon,  in  which  he — 
Henri  of  Navarre — paraded  this  stage  trick,  as  a  grand 
'  stroke  for  the  church  of  God.' 

'  Mon  amy,  le  diocese  d'Evreux  a  gaigne  celuy  de  Saul- 
mur,  et  la  douceur  dont  on  y  a  procede  a  oste  I'occasion  a 
quelque  hugenote  que  ce  soit  de  dire  que  rien  y  ait  eu 
force  que  la  verite ;  le  porteur  y  estoit  qui  vous  contera 
comme  j'y  ai  faict  merveilles ;  certes  c'est  un  des  plus 
grants  coups  pour  I'eglise  de  Dieu,  qu'il  se  soit  faict  il  y  a 
longtemps ;  suyvant  ces  erres,  nous  ramenerons  plus  de 
separez  de  I'eglise  en  un  an  que  par  une  aultre  voye  en 
cinquante.' 

This  gasconade  was  printed,  and  circulated,  by  the 
catholic  party,  to  announce  their  'victory'  in  every  part 
of  France.  Besides  the  'grant  coup  pour  I'eglise  de  Dieu,' 
Henri  gained  by  it  the  humiliation  of  his  faithful  friend 
and  servant,  Du  Plessis  Mornay^,  who  retired  heart-broken 
to  Saumur.  Canaye  de  Fresne  availed  himself  of  it,  as  a 
justification  of  the  apostacy  he  had  long  meditated,  and 
was  rewarded  at  once  by  the  Venetian  embassy^.  Both 
friends  and  foes  now  made  sure  that  Casaubon  would  be 
the  next  to  go.  Du  Perron  closeted  him  and  talked  with 
learned   unction   on  religion.     *  May  12,    1600,    '  To-day 

'  Casaubon  had  begun  to  enter  in  the  '  Ephemerides,'  p.  250,  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  the  Fontainebleau  conference.  But  he  breaks  it  off  at  the  second  con- 
tested passage,  finding  that  his  memory  ■would  not  serve  him,  either  as  to  the 
sequence  of  the  discussion,  or  even  as  to  the  decision  of  the  umpires.  Two 
blank  pages  are  left,  but  were  never  filled  in.  Meanwhile,  we  have  two 
authentic  reports  of  the  conference,  by  the  respective  parties,  i.  Actes  de  la 
conference,  etc.  Evreux,  1601.  This  was  drawn  up  by  the  cardinal  himself, 
and  printed  at  his  private  press.  For  the  use  of  this  rare  volume,  I  am  indebted 
to  the  library  of  Balliol  College.  ■^.  Discours  veritable  de  la  conference  tenue  a 
Fontainebelleau,  s.  1.  1600 ;  inspired,  if  not  authorised,  by  Du  Plessis  Mornay 
himself.     See  Note  A  in  appendix. 

''  Ep.  214 ;  '  Memoriam  illius  rei  luctu  refugit  animus.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  720  :  '  Vel  rationes,  vel  necessitates  domesticae  in  romanam  eccle- 
siamtranstulerunt.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  260. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  145 

serious  conversation  on  religion  with  the  bishop  of  Evreux.' 
Casaubon  was  eagerly  claimed  by  the  one  side,  and 
angrily  denounced  by  the  other,  as  having  aided  and  abet- 
ted this  great  victory  of  Fontainebleau.  Daniel  Chamier, 
Jean  Gigord,  Pinaud,  the  leading  calvinist  ministers  at 
Montpellier  and  Geneva  ;  Jean  Calas,  doctor  of  law,  a 
person  of  great  weight  at  Nimes  ;  wrote  bitter  expostula- 
tions on  his  conduct  in  the  affair,  by  which  he  was  cut  to 
the  heart.  The  protestants  seem  to  have  thought  that 
their  champion  might  have  made  a  few  slips  among  so 
many  thousand  quotations,  but  that  Casaubon,  hke  a  good 
advocate,  might  have  brought  him  through.  In  vain 
Casaubon  represented  that  he  had  been  appointed  a  judge 
and  not  an  advocate,  and  a  judge  of  a  literary  quarrel,  not 
of  a  religious  controversy,  and  that  the  sentence  of  the 
arbitrators,  in  each  of  the  eight  passages,  was  unquestion- 
ably right.  Technically,  his  defence  of  himself  was  good ; 
substantially,  the  protestant  grievance  was  just.  Though 
he  had  only  adjudicated  on  the  correctness  of  Mornay's 
quotations,  the  result  had  been  appropriated  as  a  party 
victory  by  the  catholics,  a  victory  of  truth  over  error,  of 
honest  interpretation  over  heretical  falsification.  '  Even 
your  Casaubon  is  obliged  to  admit  that  antiquity  is  for  us,' 
Du  Perron  could  say. 

Casaubon  was  terrified  to' find  that  the  report  of  his 
apostacy  was  now  ^ '  spread  through  the  whole  of  France.' 
Nay,  it  had  reached  Rome.  Whenever  any  mischief  was 
to  be  done  by  tale-bearing  or  slandering,  Scioppius  was 
sure  to  be  in  it.  This  creditable  person,  it  seems,  had  al- 
leged, as  one  motive  of  his  own  conversion,  that  he  had 
learnt  that  Casaubon  was  meditating  the  same  step. 
To  do  something  towards  counteracting  the  scandal, 
Casaubon  addressed  a  formal  epistle  to  the  protestant 
synod  assembled  at  Gergeau,  asseverating  his  constancy, 
and  appealing  both  to  his  early  education  and  to  his 

^  Ep.  232  :  '  Sparsum  de  nobis  tota  Gallia  rumorera.' 
L 

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146  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

daily  studies  as  its  sufficient  guarantee.  The  occasion  was 
considered  one  of  such  pubhc  importance,  that  a  translation 
was  published  at  Geneva  both  of  Casaubon's  letter  and  the 
response,  for  wider  circulation  in  classes  in  which  latin 
was  not  read  ^  More  than  the  violent  rage  of  the  ministers 
he  feared  the  cool  penetration  of  Scaliger's  judgment. 
Scaliger  would  not  pronounce  an  opinion  till  he  had  heard 
all  the  circumstances.  He  begs  for  Casaubon's  own 
account.  Not  till  September  22  did  Casaubon  even 
mention  the  subject  to  him,  and  then  in  as  few  words  as 
possible,  and  with  reluctance — '  haec  scribo  prope  invitus.' 
He  laments  the  exposure  of  Mornay's  weakness,  who 
would  never  have  gone  there  if  he  had  acted  with  his  usual 
prudence.  He  admits  that  the  defeat  was  complete, 
clothing  the  admission  in  greek  to  hide  it  from  prying  eyes 
{to.  Trept  Tr\v  'naihdav  iKaTT^\i.aro).  '  I  could  weep  when  I  call 
to  mind  the  sad  spectacle  of  that  day,  the  theatrical  triumph 
over  the  noble,  the  talented,  the  true !  There  are,  who 
blame  the  k — .  Whenever  I  have  pleaded  the  cause  of 
our  friend  to  him,  his  answer  has  been  "  it  is  his  own  fault. 
What  did  I  do  ?  " '  Scaliger's  reproof  was  conveyed  by 
his  silence.  He  never  alluded  to  the  transaction,  though 
continuing  a  steady  correspondence  with  Casaubon. 
What  his  opinion  was  we  know  from  Vassan's  notes  of  his 
conversation  in  1603.  He  said^,  'Casaubon  ought  never 
to  have  gone  to  that  conference ;  he  was  the  ass  among 
the  apes  ;  the  only  learned  man  among  the  judges.' 

An  impartial  writer,  Burigny,  thinks  that  Scaliger  could 
not  have  said  this,  because  de  Thou  and  Pithou  were  men 
of  merit,  and  at  least  de  Thou  was  highly  esteemed  by 
Scaliger  himself.     Both  of  them  were,  it  is  true,  men  of 

'  The  original  is  in  latin,  in  the  collected  volume  of  Epistolae,  ep.  232.  The 
french  translation  has  on  the  title-page,  Gen.  1601.  There  is  a  copy  in  the 
Brit.  Mus.  with  a  note,  in  sir  H.  Wotton's  hand,  stating  that  the  translator  was 
de  Montliard. 

^  Scalig".  2".  p.  45;  '  Casaubonus  non  debebat  interesse  coUoquio  Plessiaeano ; 
erat  asinus  inter  simias,  doctus  inter  imperitos.' 


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iv.J  PARIS.     i6oo-x6io.  147 

great  reading,  even  learning.  But  not  in  the  matter  in 
hand.  Their  reading  was  not  in  the  schoolmen  or  fathers. 
Neither  of  them  could  be  considered  quahfied,  upon  the 
spot  and  without  preparation,  to  say,  e.  g.  what  was 
Durandus'  real  opinion  on  transubstantiation.  They  were 
imperiti,  not  indocti.  They  were  overborne  by  the  volu- 
bility and  readiness  of  Du  Perron,  whose  art  of  contro- 
versy consisted  in  accumulating  quotations  ^  He  was, 
as  Casaubon  pleads  in  apology,  '  skilled  in  all  the  jugglery 
of  the  sophistic  art.' 

Casaubon  returned  to  Paris,  with  his  plans  still  unsettled, 
uncertain  what  his  occupation,  even  where  his  home,  was. 
Madame  Casaubon  was  still  at  Geneva.  The  Athenaeus 
hung  in  the  Lyon  press,  and  he  found  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  get  it  out  without  being  on  the  spot.  As  this 
was  the  most  urgent  call,  he  resolved  to  go  back  to  Lyon 
and  to  see  his  book  published.  The  summer  months  of 
1600  were  accordingly  passed  at  Lyon,  and  on  August  9 
he  sent  to  the  press  the  last  corrected  sheet  of  this  ^  '  most 
wearisome  work.' 

All  this  while  he  had  been  harassed,  not  only  by  the 
conflict  with  his  publisher,  but  by  anxiety  as  to  his  own 
future.  He  was,  and  he  was  not,  in  the  service  of  the  king. 
The  acts  of  the  conference  at  Fontainebleau  style  him  '  le 
sieur  de  Cazaubon  lecteur  de  Sa  Majeste ; '  a  title  which 
may  be  explained  as  titular  professor,  professor  not  of  the 
university,  such  as  were  the  professors  of  the  College 
royal.  In  this  capacity  he  had  received  money  from  Rosny, 
and  that  more  than  once  ;  as  lately  as  May  12,  300  escus 
for  journey  money  for  himself,  his  family,  and  his  books. 
This  he  had  taken,  and  yet  here  he  is  at  Lyon,  debating 
if  he  shall  return  to  Paris  at  all.  De  Vic,  as  envoy  to 
the  Swiss  confederation,  is  going  to  remove  from  Lyon  to 
settle  at  Soleure,  and  wished  to  take  Casaubon  with  him. 
It  was  painful  to  him  to  refuse  the  offer  of  his  benefactor, 

^  D'Aubign^,  M^m.  i.  147.  ^  See  supra,  p.  138. 

L  2 

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148  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

whose  house  he  had  been  using  as  his  own  all  these 
months,  to  whom,  especially  to  Madame  de  Vic,  he  was 
sincerely  attached.  But  to  be  permanently  settled  in  the 
household  of  a  strong  catholic  must  strengthen  the  sus- 
picions already  entertained,  and  expose  him  to  daily  trials. 
Soleure  was  a  catholic  canton,  and  in  the  town  itself  was 
no  protestant  temple.  This  privation  of  public  worship, 
both  himself  and  Madame  Casaubon  had  ill  supported  at 
Lyon,  and  they  could  not  bear  to  think  of  making  it 
permanent.  These  considerations,  not  to  mention  the 
want  of  a  library,  and  of  persons  of  education,  neither  of 
which  existed  at  Soleure,  the  reproaches  he  must  expect 
from  the  Paris  friends  that  he  was  deserting  them,  and  the 
obligation  he  had  incurred  by  receiving  money  from  the 
exchequer, — decided  him  to  refuse.  De  Vic  was  highly 
incensed,  and  when  he  left  for  Soleure,  did  so  without 
taking  leave  of  Casaubon.  They  met  again  years  after- 
wards, but  it  does  not  appear  that  their  former  close 
friendship  was  renewed. 

The  die  was  now  cast,  and  Casaubon  returned  to 
Paris,  for  good  or  for  evil.  As  he  now  had  his  family  and 
books  with  him,  he  found  it  expedient  to  abandon  the 
post-horse  travelling  (relais)  which  he  had  used  before, 
for  the  slower,  more  economical,  water  conveyance.  The 
'  relais '  was  one  of  the  excellent  institutions  of  Sully,  and 
one  which  was  so  well  appointed,  that  it  had  been  possible 
for  Casaubon  in  March  to  reach  Paris  on  the  seventh  day 
from  Lyon.  This  implied  an  average  of  fifty  miles 
(english)  per  day ;  severe  riding  for  a  sedentary  scholar, 
in  feeble  health,  unaccustomed  to  any  exercise.  Yet  he 
found  he  could  bear  it;  though  as  the  worst  dressed 
and  least  likely  looking  cavalier  of  the  party,  he  was 
always  put  off  with  the  worst  hack  ^  But  it  was  cheap 
travelling,  the  tariff  being  fixed  at  thirty  sous,'*lqual  to  five 

'  Epheni.  p.  233  1  '  Pessimis  semper  usi  equis,  cum  meliores  t£  koXKiov  ^iKptea- 
fi(V(j>  S^$tv  darentur  neque  ego  recusarem.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1 610.  149 

francs  forty  cents  per  day.  Sumpter-horses  could  also  be 
hired  for  the  transport  of  the  traveller's  baggage.  From 
Lyon  to  Paris,  however,  the  Loire  offered  facilities  which, 
when  speed  was  not  an  object,  made  that  route  generally 
preferred.  You  embarked  on  the  river  at  Roanne,  and 
left  it  at  Orleans.  Thus  the  distance  which  had  to  be 
ridden  was  reduced  to  the  fifty-four  miles  from  Lyon 
to  Roanne,  and  the  seventy-three  miles  from  Orleans  to 
Paris.  The  rest  of  the  distance  was  performed  in  the 
coche  d'eau,  a  covered  barge,  not  towed,  but  impelled  by 
the  stream,  aided  and  guided  by  sails.  The  miseries  of 
travelling  were  thus  mitigated,  but  not  wholly  escaped. 
The  water  in  the  Loire  is  always  low  in  September,  and 
the  neglect  of  the  embankment  in  the  troubles  had 
aggravated  the  evil.  Water  conveyance  was  a  security 
against  highway  robbery,  an  incident  not  unknown  on  the 
French  roads  at  the  time.  Indeed,  the  post-book  printed 
and  sold  by  the  Estienne,  for  the  government,  gave  it  a 
sort  of  legitimisation,  marking  certain  points  on  the  Lyon 
road  with  a  *,  and  adding  the  note  '  here  look  out  for 
brigands.'  The  true  brigands,  however,  were  those  of  the 
custom-house.  On  arriving  at  La  Charite,  the  officers  of 
the  douane,  or  peage,  insisted  that  Casaubon's  baggage 
and  books  were  merchandise,  and  made  the  captain  of  the 
boat  pay  for  them  as  such,  a  fraud  which  cost  Casaubon 
more  than  four  gold  crowns.  It  took  seven  days  to 
descend  from  Roanne  to  Orleans.  It  was  usual  to  bring 
to  for  the  night,  and  land  at  some  village  in  search  of  bed 
and  provisions.  Inns  in  the  villages  on  the  river  bank  were 
probably  not  at  any  time  famous.  France  and  Italy  were 
yet  the  only  countries  in  which  the  comfort  of  the  traveller 
was  at  all  attended  to.  A  generation  later,  France  could 
vaunt  with  .truth  ^'  la  belle  commodite  des  hostelleries  oil 
Ton  est  re9u  comme  chez  soi.'  But  in  1600,  thirty  years  of 
barbarism  had  told  cruelly  on  manners.    The  system  of 

•  Guide  des  Chemins,  1643. 

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150  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

relais  had  been  only  three  years  in  operation,  and  had  not 
had  time  to  reintroduce  civiHty  along  the  road.  To  the 
ordinary  causes  of  the  malignity  of  the  '  caupo,'  were  now 
added  those  of  religious  hatred.  When  the  Casaubons 
arrived  at  midnight  at  the  door  of  the  inn,  wet  through 
and  hungry,  Madame  Casaubon  in  a  delicate  condition, 
the  cherished  daughter  Philippa,  a  frail  creature,  already 
drooping  into  an  untimely  grave,  it  was  whispered  that  they 
were  huguenot.  Not  a  hand  was  stirred  for  their  service. 
No  food,  no  fire,  no  light.  Their  own  bargeman  lighted 
them  with  a  blazing  wisp  of  straw,  but  not  to  bed ;  there 
was  none  for  them.  They  might  sleep  on  the  floor, 
perhaps  on  clean  straw,  such  as  ToUius  ^,  in  1687,  found 
to  be  still  the  ordinary  bedding  in  the  Westphalian  inns. 
Thus  it  was,  all  through  the  catholic  Borbonnais,  nor 
did  their  entertainment  mend  till  they  reached  Orleans, 
where  the  calvinists,  though  crushed,  were  still  numerous. 
Here  they  were  hospitably  received  in  the  house  of 
Turquois,  refreshed  after  their  fatigues,  made  a  great  deal 
of,  and,  at  last,  dismissed  with  presents  of  books. 

The  party  arrived  at  Paris  in  health  and  safety, 
September  13,  having  been  fifteen  days  on  the  road. 
They  were  housed  by  Henri  Estienne,  a  first  cousin  of 
Madame  Casaubon.  One  of  Robert  Estienne's  sons  had 
returned  to  Paris,  and  to  the  catholic  church.  In  this 
instance,  however,  the  ties  of  blood  were  not  sacrificed  to 
those  of  party.  The  publishing  business  of  the  Parisian 
Estienne  was  carried  on  by  the  Patissons,  some  of  the 
grandsons  of  Robert  i.  being  concerned  in  it  as  partners. 
Of  these  Parisian  Estienne,  La  Croix  du  Maine  says, 
'  nez  aux  lettres  et  desireux  d'apprendre  de  pfere  en  fils ; ' 
and  of  two  of  them  in  particular,  Robert  and  Francois, 
that  they  were  learned  in  greek  and  latin.  We  find 
Casaubon  buying  a  book  in  order  to  make  it  a  present  to 
Robert,  who  he  thought  ought  rather  to  have  given  him 

'  Epp.  itin.  p.  17. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     i6oo-j6io.  151 

books.  Henri,  a  younger  brother,  was  not  in  the  firm, 
but  had  a  place  in  the  exchequer,  that  of  'tresorier  des 
batimens  du  roi.'  Notwithstanding  this,  he  was  a  man  of 
probity,  and  had  been  entrusted  with  Casaubon's  Httle 
capital,  for  which  he  faithfully  accounted.  He  continued 
a  firm  friend  of  the  Casaubons,  as  long  as  they  lived  in 
Paris,  and  their  children,  second  cousins,  afterwards 
intermarried.  In  March,  Isaac  had  been  lodged  by  this 
cousin  of  his  wife's,  and  Estienne  now  took  the  whole 
party  in,  till  an  apartment  could  be  found  1. 

In  his  choice  of  a  lodging,  Casaubon  was  obliged  to 
consult,  not  only  his  small  means,  but  convenience  of 
situation.  It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  king's 
reader,  titular  professor  classical,  would  have  wished  to 
establish  himself  in  the  university  quarter.  There  were 
the  libraries,  there  were  the  pupils,  if  he  meant  to  have 
any.  But  for  various  reasons,  he  chose  to  settle  as  far 
in  the  other  direction  as  possible,  on  the  court  side  of 
the  river.  Scaliger,  who  knew  France  and  Paris,  and, 
from  Leyden,  saw  things  much  more  clearly  than  Cas- 
aubon on  the  spot,  had  warned  him  of  three  evils  which 
he  would  have  to  contend  with,  in  his  new  position. 
The  first  of  these  was  the  consequence  of  his  own 
celebrity.  Casaubon's  wishes  were  few, — indeed  mainte- 
nance once  secured,  they  were  only  two, — books,  and 
leisure  to  read  them.  Paris  was  the  place  for  books. 
Besides  the  libraries,  there  was  the  rue  S.  Jacques,  ac- 
cording to  Coryat,  1608, '  very  full  of  booksellers  that  have 
faire  shoppes  most  plentifully  furnished  with  bookes.' 
'  But,'  writes  Scaliger  ^  '  if  you  expect  to  be  left  alone,  you 
are  very  much  mistaken.  You  are  now  too  widely  known 
to  hope  for  that  unnoticed  and  inglorious  retirement, 
for  which  every  muse-smitten  mortal  of  us  longs.    That 

'  Ephem.  p.  306  :  '  Me  meamque  omnem  familiam  domi  apud  se  detinuit,  et 
omnibus  rebus  necessariis  fovit.' 
2  Seal.  Ep.  53. 

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1 5a  ISAAC  CAS  A  UB  ON.  [Sect. 

out-of-the-way  corner  of  Paris,  in  which  you  are  proposing 
to  bury  yourself,  will  not  secure  you  against  the  constant 
invasion  of  your  friends.'  The  prediction  was  abundantly 
verified,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see. 

During  the  whole  ten  years  of  his  Paris  sojourn,  we  shall 
find  Casaubon  incessantly  scheming  to  go  to  some  other 
place.  When  we  review  the  inconveniences  attached  to  his 
situation,  as  a  huguenot  dependent  of  a  cathoHc  court,  we 
should  not  be  justified  in  ascribing  this  inquietude  to  mere 
restlessness  of  disposition.  It  had  its  justification,  but  too 
well  founded,  in  the  sense  that  his  position,  depending  as 
it  did  on  the  life  of  Henri  iv,  hung  by  a  thread.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  does  not  seem  altogether  without  reason, 
that  the  biographers  charge  him  with  habitual  fidgettiness. 
This  appears  in  his  many  removals  in  Paris,  chasing 
comfort,  from  lodging  to  lodging,  without  ever  finding  it. 
Between  1600  and  1607,  he  changed  his  abode  in  the 
capital  seven  times. 

I.  On  arriving  in  the  city,  March  6,  1600,  he  was 
temporarily  entertained  in  de  Vic's  hotel.  2.  March  28, 
de  Vic  returned  to  Lyons,  and  Casaubon  became  the  guest 
of  his  wife's  cousin,  Henri  Estienne.  He  goes  to  Lyons, 
where  he  stays  in  de  Vic's  house,  and  returns  to  Estienne's 
in  Paris,  September  13.  3.  October  25,  he  at  last  estab- 
lishes himself  in  a  lodging  of  his  own.  4.  January  24,  1601, 
he  quits  this  inconvenient  lodging,  to  occupy  one  in  the 
house  of  an  '  honest  man,  one  Georges.'  5.  July  17, 
another  removal,  to  a  house  found  for  him  by  Achille  de 
Harlay,  who,  says  Gillot,  '  I'a  loge  bravement,  et  assez  pres 
de  nous.'  It  was  on  the  court  side  of  the  water,  and  '  far 
from  the  library.'  His  friends  had  got  him  among  them, 
but  this  soon  turned  out  an  inconvenience  not  to  be  sup- 
ported, and  he  shifts  again.  6.  October,  1604,  he  goes 
over  the  water,  to  be  away  from  his  friends.  After  some 
search  he  finds  an  apartment  in,  or  attached  to,  the  house 
of  one  Coq,  a  member  of  the  bar,  who,  having  built  a 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  153 

large  new  house  for  himself,  let  off  a  detached  portion 
to  Casaubon.  This  was  in  the  faubourg  S.  Germain.  7. 
Finally,  he  settled  himself  close  to  the  library,  opposite  the 
great  convent  known  as  the  Cordeliers,  on  the  site  of 
which  is  now  the  musee  Dupuytren.  For  this  house, 
which  was  a  large  one,  he  paid  the  enormous  rent  of  400 
livres  ^-  Besides  his  apartment  in  Paris,  he  had  occasional 
country  quarters ;  first  at  Madrid,  in  the  Bois,  afterwards 
at  La  Bretonnifere.  And,  ultimately,  he  established  himself 
in  a  country  house  at  Grigny,  on  the  terres  of  his  intimate 
friend  Josias  Mercier,  seigneur  Des  Bordes  *. 

Each  of  these  removals  had  its  special  and  sufficient 
reason;  yet  all  taken  together,  and  along  with  the  dis- 
content with  where  he  is,  the  incessant  sighing  to  be 
somewhere  else,  the  cry  for  'leisure,'  we  cannot  be  sur- 
prised that  his  contemporaries  should  have  thought  of 
Casaubon  as  a  querulous  dissatisfied  man,  and  that  the 
biographers  should  have  enhanced  this  impression  still 
further. 

The  true  account  of  the  matter  is,  it  seems  to  me,  that 
Casaubon  had  the  nervous  sensibility  of  the  hard  student. 
This  susceptibility  made  him  unequal  to  face  the  fret  and 
worry  of  life,  and  especially  of  Parisian  existence.  But  he 
shunned  the  outer  world  not  as  trouble,  but  as  interrup- 
tion ;  he  wanted  to  be  free,  not  for  an  epicurean  inaction, 
but  for  hard  work — the  work  he  felt  he  could  do.  To  do 
this,  he  would  fain  have  been  released  from  that  he  could 
not  do.  If  he  is  solicitous,  more  than  we  think  is  dignified, 
about  provision  for  his  own  necessities  and  those  of  his 
family,  it  is  not  covetousness,  it  is  that  with  a  free  mind  he 

'  From  the  rents  paid  by  Casaubon  we  may  infer  that  he  required  a  tolerably 
spacious  apartment  to  house  his  family  and  books.  We  find  from  Fynes 
Moryson's  Itinerary,  that  in  1595  a  single  chamber  could  be  hired  for  two 
crowns  a  month  =  72  livres  a  year  =  267  francs  at  the  present  day.  Itin.  pt.  3. 
p.  135  :  '  He  may  have  a  well  furnished  chamber  at  Paris  for  some  two  crowns 
a  month.' 

*  See  note  B  in  Appendix. 

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154 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


may  bestow  it  all  on  his  one  object  in  life.  The  nomadic 
Italian  humanist  of  the  fifteenth  century  roved  incessantly 
from  court  to  court,  with  the  aim,  which  in  a  scholar  is 
sordid,  of  bettering  his  fortunes.  Casaubon's  removals 
were  dictated  by  the  single  desire  to  secure  time  for  his 

work. 

Achille  de  Harlay  had  bestowed  a  doubtful  benefit  on  him 
when  he  had  found  him  a  lodging  '  assez  pres  de  nous.' 
The  diary  begins  again  to  echo  with  groans  over  time  run- 
ning to  waste.      He  tells  Lipsius  Hhat  he  is  driven  to  do 
his  translation  of  Polybius  as  the  sheets  pass  through  the 
press,  '  from  want  of  time.     The  greater  part  of  my  day  is 
wasted  upon  wretched  nothings  in  this  busy  capital,  busy 
because  all  the  men  have  nothing  to  do.'     Day  after  day 
the  entry  in  the  diary  is,  'This  day,  too,  my  friends  have 
made  me  lose !  amici  studiorum  meorum  inimici.'    '  Aug.  3, 
1601,  O  woe,  O  wretchedness,  all  study  is  at  an  end  for  me, 
how  much  of  each  day  do  I  spend  in  reading,  each  day  do 
I  say,  a  whole  week  is  gone,  a  whole  month,  and  I  can 
hardly  get  to  look  at  a  book.'    The  waiHngs  of  MontpeUier 
are  revived,  but  upon  a  greater  stage.     Being  a  sort  of 
court  pensioner,  Casaubon  too  is  part  of  the  court.     He 
has  to  wait  upon  the  king;  to  wait,  a  good  deal,  upon 
Rosny ;  upon  various  grands  seigneurs,  a  little  in  his  own 
affairs,    much    in    those   of   his   friends.     He    began   to 
experience  the  annoyances  which  await  one  who  is  sup- 
posed to  stand  well  with  men  in  power.     '  This  morning 
my  friends  ad  proceres  me  rapuerunt  negotiorum  suorum 
causa ! '  '  Put  my  lord  Bolingbroke  in   mind  To  get  my 
warrant  quickly  sign'd.  Consider  'tis  my  first  request.'    He 
felt  most  grateful  to  the  chancellor  Bellifevre,  who,  being 
told   one   day  that   Casaubon   was  waiting  in   his   ante- 
chamber, sent  him  word  to  go  home  to  his  books,  and  not 

'  Burm.  Sylloge,  i.  366;    'Ad  hoc     .  .     adigit  me  temporis  inopia,  cujus 

pars  maxima  in  hac  civitate  negotiosissima,  otiosorum  hominum  matre,  misere 
quotidie  mihi  surrepta  perit.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  155 

waste  his  valuable  time  in  that  way ;  he  might  state  his 
friend's  case  by  letter.  Other  duties  of  friendship  besides 
solicitation  had  to  be  discharged.  De  Thou  lost  his  wife 
in  the  prime  ofUfe,  set.  35,  and  Casaubon  could  not  but 
devote  much  time  to  sympathy,  and  condolence.  He  was 
with  him  daily  for  some  time  ;  one  day  no  less  than  twelve 
hours.  Besides  the  constant  attendance  on,  and  visits 
from  the  parisian  friends,  there  are  the  strangers.  Going 
and  coming,  every  one  passes  through  Paris,  every  one 
who  reads,  wishes  to  see  Casaubon.  His  house  is  a  shrine 
of  protestant  pilgrimage.  Hear  e.  g.  the  Odcombian,  ^  '  I 
enjoyed  one  thing  in  Paris,  which  I  most  desired  above 
all  things,  and  oftentimes  wished  for  before  I  saw  the  citie, 
even  the  sight  and  company  of  that  rare  ornament  of  learn- 
ing, Isaac  Casaubonus,  with  whom  I  had  much  familiar 
conversation  at  his  house,  near  unto  St.  German's  gate 
within  the  citie.  I  found  him  very  affable  and  courteous,  and 
learned  in  his  discourses,  and  by  so  much  the  more  wilHng 
to  give  me  entertainment,  by  how  much  the  more  I  made 
relation  to  him  of  his  learned  workes,  whereof  some  I  have 
read.  For  many  excellent  bookes  hath  this  man  (who  is  the 
very  glory  of  the  french  protestants)  set  forth  to  the  great 
benefit,  and  utility  of  the  common  weale  of  learning.'  Nay, 
long  after,  in  the  middle  of  the  i8th  century,  old  learning, 
and  with  it  Casaubon's  memory,  was  not  yet  obliterated. 
In  1755,  when  Ruhnken  spent  a  year  in  Paris,  there  were 
still  antiquaries  a  few — Capperonier,  no  doubt — who  pre- 
served the  memory  of  where  Casaubon  had  lived  for  study  ^. 
Ruhnken  did  not  fail  to  visit  the  house,  and  perhaps  in 
company  with  Musgrave  and  Tyrwhitt,  to  salute  the  manes 
of  the  heroic  man !  The  house  to  which  these  visits  were 
paid  was  not  that  found  for  him  by   Harlay,  but  the 

1  Coryat,  Crudities,  i.  42.  ed.  1776. 

"  Wyttenb.  Vita  Ruhnk.  p.  67  :  '  jEdiculam,  in  qua  Casaubonus  literis 
operari  solebat,  Ruhnkenio  monstrarunt  Parisienses  quidam,  qui  pauci  veterem 
venustatem  retinerent,  eoque  ventitarent  quasi  salutatum  manes  lierois  de  optimo 
hominum  genere  optima  meriti.' 

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156  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

librarian's  house,  close  to  the  Cordeliers,  and  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  pays  latin. 

Casaubon's  aversion  to  the  university  had  led  him,  in 
the  first  instance,  to  seek  an  abode  as  remote  from  it  as 
possible.  This  was  the  second  of  the  three  sources  of 
vexation  which  Scaliger's  experience  had  pointed  out.  It 
is  necessary  to  enter  into  some  explanation  of  Casaubon's 
relations  to  the  university  of  Paris.  This  cannot  be  done 
without  touching  upon  the  general  condition  of  the  univer- 
sity at  this  period,  circ.  1600  *. 

Casaubon  had  left  an  honourable,  though  poor,  position 
at  Montpellier,  in  virtue  of  a  summons  which  invited  him 
to  aid  '  in  restoring  the  university  of  Paris,'  and  offered  him 
'la  profession  des  bonnes  lettres  en  laditte  universite.' 
When  he  waited  upon  the  king,  in  March  1600,  Henri 
repeated  more  than  once  ^,  with  his  own  mouth,  the  words 
of  the  letter  of  January  1599,  '  Remettre  sus  I'universite.' 
'  To  restore  the  university,'  the  phrase  requires  explanation, 
for  it  was  not  one  hazarded  by  the  king  on  the  moment ;  it 
was  a  phrase  current  at  the  time,  and  employed  as  well  by 
the  friends  as  the  enemies  of  the  university.  It  is  the 
consecrated  expression  in  all  the  memoirs  and  documents 
of  the  period.  The  formal  petition  addressed  by  the  uni- 
versity itself  to  the  parlement  of  Paris,  asks^  that  court 
'  to  set  up  again  the  decaying,  and  almost  ruinous,  univer- 
sity.' The  lament  of  the  university  is  reechoed  by  its 
enemy  and  pushing  rival,  the  Jesuits,  who  founded  on  this 
fact  of  decay  their  own  claims  to  admission.  It  was  safe 
then  for  Casaubon,  in  the  dedication  of  his  Athenaeus,  to 
pray  the  king  ^  '  not  to  permit  that   university,  once  the 

*  See  note  C  in  Appendix. 

'  Ep.  208 :  '  Non  semel  demonstravit  nobis  voluntatem  suam  opem  nostram 
utendi  in  restauranda  hae  schola.' 

^  Libellus  supplex,  p.  31  ;  '  Labentem  et  paene  cadentem  academiam  erigere.' 

''  Ded.  Obs.  in  Athenseum  (to  Henri  iv) :  '  Patieris,  princeps  benignissime, 
jacere  aeternum  tuam  illam  Academiam,  clarissinium  quondam  non  solum  Galli- 
arum,  sed  totius  Europse  lumen.'  M.  Gustave  Masson,  Bull,  de  la  Soc.  de  I'Hist. 
prot.  18.  398,  n.  refers  these  words  to  the  college  royal.     It  is  with  great  hesi- 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610.  157 

shining  light  not  only  of  France  but  of  Europe,  to  lie  for 
ever  prostrate.' 

The  decay  thus  familiar  in  men's  mouths  did  not  mean 
decay  of  learning.  Such  decay  had,  indeed,  taken  place. 
The  deterioration  of  the  standard  of  learning  in  the 
university  of  Paris,  circ.  1600,  is  a  striking  fact  in  the 
literary  history  of  Europe;  a  fact  so  manifest  to  us, 
that  when  the  writers  of  Henri  iv's  reign  speak  of  '  decay,' 
we  are  ready  at  once  to  interpret  their  language  of  intel- 
lectual decay.  This,  however,  was  not  what  they  meant. 
It  was  true,  but  they  did  not  know  it.  Decay  creeps 
on  a  literary  corporation,  as  on  the  individual,  insensibly 
to  its  subject. 

The  university  of  Paris  had  been,  for  some  centuries, 
not  only  the  first  university  of  Christendom,  but  the  centre 
of  intellectual  life  and  freedom.  As  long  as  the  scholastic 
philosophy  had  been  the  expression  of  this  life,  Paris  con- 
tinued the  chosen  home  of  the  study,  which  it  had  created 
and  developed.  But  now  the  intellectual  life  of  Europe  had 
passed  into  the  study  of  the  classics,  and  into  the  art  and 
science,  which  were  to  spring  from  that  study.  For  a 
short  time  it  had  seemed  as  if  this  new  life  of  the  classical 
renaissance,  exiled  from  Italy,  was  about  to  select  its  home 
in  Paris.  But  the  beginning  so  auspiciously  made  by  the 
foundation  of  the  college  royal  was  cut  short  by  religious 
fanaticism.  The  S.  Bartholomew,  1572,  and  its  sequel, 
involved  protestantism  and  classical  learning  in  a  common 
ruin.  Ramus  owed  his  death  as  much  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  university  reformer,  as  that  he  was  suspected  of 


tation  that  I  differ  from  one  who  is  the  highest  english  authority  on  the  history 
of  the  french  reform.  But  it  is  clear  to  me  that  Casaubon,  here  and  elsewhere, 
speaks  of  the  university  of  Paris.  And  it  is  very  far  from  being  true  of  the 
college  royal,  that  '  Henri  iv  lui  rendit  en  effet  tout  son  eclat.'  The  regius 
chairs  continued  to  be  filled,  from  ecclesiastical  considerations,  with  incompetent 
persons.  The  series  of  greek  professors  in  the  years  of  reaction,  was,  1595, 
George  Crichton  ;  1603,  Jerome  Goulu ;  161 1,  Nicolas  Bourbon;  1619,  Pierre 
Valens  ;  1623,  Pierre  de  Montmaur. 


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158  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Calvinism.  The  days  of  Budaeus,  of  Turnebus,  Lambinus, 
Danes,  Vatable,  Tusan,  Galland,  Ramus,  were  passed. 
Their  chairs  remained,  but  filled  by  a  nameless  genera- 
tion, of  baser  metal.  How  inferior  none  cared ;  indeed 
few  knew.  The  tradition  of  classical  learning  was  pre- 
served by  french  scholars,  but  by  Scaliger  who  was  an 
exile,  by  Casaubon  who  was  an  alien. 

The  decay  complained  of  then  was  not  decay  of  learning, 
but  material  decay. 

In  this  respect  the  university  of  Paris  came  out  of  the 
religious  wars  a  wreck.  It  had  suffered  in  its  property. 
Its  students  had  disappeared.  Discipline  was  at  an  end. 
This  was  the  natural  result  of  thirty  years  of  civil  war,  a 
drama  including  such  acts  as  the  massacre  of  '72,  the 
League,  the  barricades,  the  siege  of  '93.  During  the  siege 
the  attendance  had  reached  the  lowest  point.  One  college 
alone,  that  of  Lisieux,  continued  in  exercise.  To  this  had 
come  down  the  30,000  students  ^  of  which  the  university 
used  to  boast  before  the  troubles.  To  be  without  students 
was  to  be  without  means.  For  the  university  of  Paris, 
even  at  a  time  when  its  renown  filled  Europe,  was  poor, 
without  revenues,  without  buildings,  as  a  university.  Till 
the  foundation  of  the  college  royal  by  Francis  i,  none 
of  its  teachers  had  enjoyed  an  endowment.  The  teachers 
depended  for  payment  on  their  pupils.     Six  crowns  a  year, 


'  The  mystical  number  of  30,000  reappearing  at  this  period  may  seem  sus- 
picious, especially  as  there  is  no  appearance  of  a  register  of  scholars.  It  can 
have  been  at  most  an  approximative  computation.  But  as  such  it  is  confirmed 
by  many  contemporary  authorities.  In  the  time  of  Charles  vii  the  number  had 
been  estimated  at  25,000.  In  1546,  Marino  Cavalli  (Tommasseo,  Relations  des 
ambass.  Venit.  i.  263)  gives  16,000  to  20,000  as  the  number.  The  larger  number 
of  30,000  is  the  popular  estimate  for  the  period  preceding  the  religious  troubles. 
Garnier,  n.  on  Ronsard,  CEuvres,  .1.  1379.  Scalig^  2".  p.  179 :  '  Parisiis  erant 
meo  tempore  xxx  milia  studiosorum,  semel  armati  sunt  a  Condaeo.'  Lippomanno 
(Tommasseo,  2.  605)  in  1577  :  '  L'universitd  est  rarement  frequentee  par  moins 
de  30,000  Studiants,  c'est  a  dire,  autant  et  peut-etre  plus  que  n'en  ont  toutes  les 
universit^s  d'ltalie  prises  ensemble.'  Du  Moulin,  Defense  de  la  foy  catholique, 
P-  53  ;  '  Ou  est  ceste  university  de  Paris  qui  avoit  plus  de  30,000  escholiers,'  etc, 
Arnauld,  Discours  au  Roi,  p.  65. 


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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  159 

=  £2  Sterling,  was  the  highest  fee  usual  in  the  first  three 
classes ;  in  the  lower  classes  it  was  less ;  the  notoriously 
poor  were  excused  payment  altogether.  What  property  the 
university  had  belonged  to  the  colleges.  For  the  univer- 
sity of  Paris,  like  the  English  universities,  consisted  of 
its  colleges.  But,  unlike  the  colleges  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  the  colleges  of  the  university  of  Paris  had 
but  slender  endowments,  often  nothing  beyond  their 
buildings.  In  some  colleges  'bourses'  were  founded, 
which  provided  a  scanty  maintenance  for  students  (chiefly 
in  theology),  through  a  more  prolonged  course  of  study, 
and  enabling  them  to  reach  the  doctorate. 

At  the  time  of  which  we  write,  the  forty  colleges  were 
empty  of  students.  A  solitary  principal,  without  fees  to 
pay  tutors,  or  keep  house,  '  tacitis  regnabat  Amyclis ! ' 
Some  colleges  were  in  ruins.  Spanish  and  Neapolitan 
soldiers  of  the  garrison  had  installed  themselves  in  the 
chambers,  had  burnt  the  humble  furniture  for  firewood, 
had  stabled  their  horses  in  the  chapel.  Others  were  in- 
vaded by  poor  peasant  famihes  from  the  banheu,  rendered 
houseless  by  the  devastation  of  the  siege.  Others  had 
been  so  long  untenanted,  that  thistles  and  brambles 
covered  the  court.  In  those  which  had  fared  best,  dis- 
cipline was  entirely  disorganised.  The  'boursiers,'  who 
may  be  compared  to  the  scholars  and  fellows  of  our 
colleges,  as  they  were  tem.  James  i,  had  possessed  them- 
selves of  what  property  remained.  They  were  engaged 
either  in  dividing  the  capital  among  themselves,  or  in 
living  on  the  revenue  without  performing  the  statutable 
exercises,  and  in  resisting  the  attempts  of  the  principal 
to  reduce  them  to  obedience.  The  authority  of  the  prin- 
cipals, or  grand  masters,  had  lapsed  from  their  hands. 
The  regents  (  =  tutors  of  our  colleges)  had  disappeared 
with  their  pupils. 

These  were,  or  seemed  to  be,  the  consequences  of  war. 
But  now  there  was  peace,  and  a  prospect  of  a  settled 

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]6o  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

government.  It  might  have  been  expected  therefore  that, 
by  the  mere  operation  of  social  habit,  the  colleges  would 
fill  again,  and  the  university  thus  restore  itself.  For  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  university  of  Paris  was  not 
merely  what  we  now  understand  by  a  university,  a  place 
which  takes  up  young  men  where  school  ends.  .  It  was  at 
once  school  and  university.  It  received  on  its  benches  the 
boy  at  nine  years  old,  and  carried  him  on  to  the  doctorate 
at  thirty-five.  It  was  the  great  grammar  school  for  the 
whole  of  Paris.  For  Paris,  it  was  protected  by  a  monopoly. 
No  individual  was  permitted  by  law  to  open  a  school,  or 
hold  a  class,  or  to  teach  publicly  or  privately,  unless  he 
himself  had  regularly  graduated,  or  been  admitted  as 
graduate  of  the  university,  and  his  pupils  had  become 
matriculated.  Private  tutors,  living  in  the  family,  were 
bound  to  send  their  eleves  to  the  classes  of  some  college. 

Under  this  monopoly,  and  with  the  prestige  of  the 
university,  it  might  have  been  anticipated  that  peace  and 
settled  government  were  all  that  was  required  to  restore 
prosperity  to  the  colleges,  and  that  the  classes  would  have 
been  again  full.  The  decay  continued,  and  was  indeed  so 
alarming  that  it  forced  itself  upon  the  attention  of  govern- 
ment. Of  the  three  leading  constituents  of  Paris,  the  small 
Paris  of  Henri  iv,  with  its  population  of  some  400,000, — out 
of  the  three  factors  of  its  prosperity,  the  convents,  the 
court,  and  the  university,  one  seemed  lost.  There  was  a 
loud  call  upon  the  paternal  government  of  Henri  iv,  which 
was  doing  so  much  for  the  restoration  of  the  country,  to 
undertake  the  restoration  of  '  the  schools,'  '  les  ecoles,'  as 
the  university  was  called. 

The  first  step  towards  remedying  the  decay  was  to 
ascertain  its  cause.  The  ultimate  cause,  stated  in  general 
terms,  was  that  the  education  offered  in  the  schools  of 
Paris  no  longer  met  the  demands  of   the  day\    The 

'  The  popular  view  of  the  decay  is  stated  in  the  dedication  by  the  '  Societas 
typographica  Parisiensis '  of  the  Oracula  SibylUna  of  1599. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  161 

Statutes  by  which  it  was  governed,  and  on  which  its  system, 
was  founded,  were  those  which  had  been  framed  by  the 
cardinal  d'Estouteville,  papal  legate  in  1452.  Since  that 
period  the  classical  renaissance  had  come,  and  had  changed 
the  material,  and  the  form,  of  education  throughout 
western  Europe.  But  Paris,  the  leader  of  fashion,  had 
remained  as  unchangeable  as  Salamanca.  Philosophy, 
become  a  lifeless  verbiage,  was  still  the  prescribed  curri- 
culum of  the  faculty  of  arts.  That  the  teaching  offered  in 
the  colleges  of  Paris  no  longer  met  the  requirements  of 
french  society,  was  the  remote  cause  of  the  falling  off  of 
students.  This  is  clear  to  our  eyes,  but  it  was  not  so  to 
those  of  contemporaries.  Had  they  seen  it  as  we  see  it, 
they  would  have  found  the  immediate  remedy  in  re- 
modeUing  the  curriculum  of  arts.  But  they  looked,  as 
practical  men  always  look,  for  proximate  causes.  They 
saw  that  the  schools  of  Paris  were  empty,  and  they 
asked,  Where,  then,  was  the  youth  of  France  ?  It 
was  in  the  colleges  of  the  Jesuits.  Many  poor  families, 
ruined  and  disorganised  by  the  war,  let  their  sons  go 
without  education  in  letters.  Others,  better  off,  engaged 
private  tutors  at  home.  Richer^  asserts  that  the  custom 
of  private  instruction,  scarcely  known  before,  had  become 
very  common  since  the  wars.  But  the  vast  majority  of  the 
middle  class  youth  who  formerly  peopled  the  schools  of  the 
university  were  in  the  colleges  of  the  Jesuits.  Not  in  the 
college  of  Clermont,  rue  S.  Jacques,  which  was  shut  up, 
but  in  the  provinces — at  Toulouse  or  Bordeaux,  Auch, 
Agen,  Rhodez,  Perigueux,  Limoges,  Le  Puy,  Aubenas, 
Beziers,  Tournon,  in  the  colleges  of  Flanders  and 
Lorraine,  Douai,  or  Pont-a-Mousson,  places  beyond  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  parlement  of  Paris,  or  even  of  the  crown 
of  France.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  legislative  confusion 
of  the  period,  that  the  banishment  of  the  society  of  Jesus 
from  the  district  of  Paris  had  been  by  arret  of  the  parle- 

'  Vie,  p.  38. 
M 

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l62  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

ment  of  Paris  alone,  and  had  never  been  confirmed  by  the 
crown  ^.  Lyon  loudly  demanded  a  Jesuit  college,  and 
even  the  huguenot  Lesdiguiferes,  almost  king  in  Dauphine, 
was  preparing  to  erect  one  at  Grenoble.  Amiens,  Reims, 
Rouen,  Dijon,  Bourges,  were  only  waiting  a  favourable 
opportunity  to  introduce  the  Jesuits  within  their  walls. 

Here,  then,  was  the  cause  of  the  '  decay '  of  the  univer- 
sity of  Paris.  Friends  and  foes  of  the  university  alike 
agreed  in  attributing  its  fallen  condition  to  the  rivalry 
of  the  new  teachers.  There  were  only  two  methods  by 
which  the  university  and  the  old  colleges  could  be  saved. 
Either  the  competition  of  the  Jesuits  must  be  put  down,  or 
the  old  colleges  must  be  reformed  to  be  able  to  compete 
with  the  new.  The  university,  of  course,  preferred  the 
former  method.  Some  of  its  more  judicious  friends  desired 
to  try  the  latter  ^. 

The  former  method  was  tried.  An  arret  of  the  parle- 
ment  of  Paris  was  procured,  prohibiting  parents  from 
sending  their  children  out  of  Paris  to  the  Jesuit  colleges, 
in  or  out  of  France.  The  order  was  simply  neglected.  It 
was  reiterated  in  1598,  again  in  1603  ;  the  repetition  is  but 
proof  enough  that  it  was  disobeyed.  The  Jesuit  schools 
overflowed  with  pupils.  In  Flanders  there  was  not  a 
town  of  any  consideration  in  which  the  whole  education  of 
the  place  was  not  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits.  At  Douai 
the  logic  class  alone  contained  400.  To  put  down  the 
Jesuit  colleges  in  1600  would  have  required  much  greater 


'  Cretineau-Joly,  a.  463. 

^  Antoine  Arnauld,  father  of  a  more  famous  Antoine  Arnauld,  in  his  '  Discours 
au  Roi,'  1594,  is  the  one  of  the  complainants  who  comes  nearest  the  real  grava- 
men. But  even  this  bold  advocate  could  not  utter  the  simple  truth,  that  the 
zeal  of  the  Jesuits  for  the  '  education '  of  the  young  was  a  mask  for  their  one 
object, — ultramontane  propagand.  Arnauld's  pleading,  and  the  answer  to  it  by 
Richeome,  '  Plainte  apologetique,  Bordeaux,  1603,'  are  only  the  principal,  and 
semi-official,  manifestoes  on  either  side.  Richeome  goes  into  the  causes  of  the 
decay  of  the  university  of  Paris.  It  is  not  due  to  the  Jesuit  competition,  but  to 
the  rise  of  catholic  universities  in  other  countries.  See  p.  5a  of  the  latin  trans- 
lation, Lugd.  1606. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  163 

power  than  the  parlement  of  Paris  ever  enjoyed.  The 
Jesuits  were  the  rage  of  the  period.  The  catholic  reaction 
was  in  full  flow,  and  the  society  was  floated  onwards  on  the 
crest  of  the  wave.  Jesuit  confessors,  preachers,  spiritual 
directors,  were  everywhere  superseding  the  older  orders. 
Especially  Jesuit  schools  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the 
public  in  a  degree  which  placed  them  beyond  competition. 

There  remained  for  the  university  to  attempt  to  reform 
its  system  of  study  in  such  a  way  as  to  enable  it  to  com- 
pete with  the  Jesuits.  This  course  was  urged  by  the 
enlightened  section  of  the  parlement,  Harlay,  de  Thou, 
etc.  It  was  obvious  to  say  to  the  university  as  the  king 
did  say  ^ :  '  If  the  Jesuit  schools  are  full,  and  yours  empty, 
c'a  este  pour  ce  qu'ils  faisoient  mieux  que  les  autres.'  In 
this  originated  the  celebrated  reform  of  the  university  of 
Paris.  The  commission  obtained  for  the  purpose,  on  which 
Harlay  and  his  friends  contrived  to  get  a  majority  of  the 
tolerant  party  nominated,  framed  revised  statutes,  by 
which  the  university  was  governed  for  170  years.  These 
statutes  removed  some  of  the  more  flagrant  abuses  of  the 
university,  and  partially  introduced  the  new  classical  cur- 
riculum. 

But  the  case  was  one  in  which  legislative  relief  could  do 
but  little.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  statutes  were  changed, 
and  the  studies  remodelled — the  old  spirit  was  unchanged. 
The  classics  were  there,  and  might  be  read,  but  the  spirit 
of  the  university  remained  ecclesiastical  and  scholastic. 
Theology  still  held  the  first  place ;  the  faculty  of  arts 
languished.  What  was  wanted  was  men.  The  best 
statutes  will  not  make  a  university  without  men  in  whom 
is  the  breath  of  life.  The  mere  introduction  of  the 
classics  into  the  curriculum  of  arts  was  nothing  without 
the  living  voice  to  teach  their  use.  The  treasures  of 
ancient    tradition,    'ein    lebendiges    fur    die    lebendigen 

'  '  Discours  au  Roi,'  Lat.  trans,  p.  24 :  '  Agite  vos,  industria  vincatis  jesuitas 
.     ,     .  atque  numero  auditorum  sine  dubitatione  vincetis." 

M  2 

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164  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

geschrieben,'  are  mere  dry  leaves  to  those  who  have  not 
learnt  to  love  them. 

It  was  therefore  the  wish  of  the  commissioners  that, 
in  order  to  give  impulse  to  the  new  studies,  some  new 
philological  power  should  be  imported  into  the  teaching 
personnel.  Two  men  at  the  moment  took  the  lead  of 
classical  learning  in  Europe,  Scaliger  and  Casaubon; 
and  it  so  happened  both  were  of  french  nationality,  Of 
Scahger  it  was  useless  to  think,  for  other  reasons,  but  also 
for  one  decisive  one  ;  it  was  well  known  that  he  would  not 
consent  to  teach.  But  Casaubon  was  not  only  french,  but 
was  actually  teaching  in  a  french  university.  Even  had 
he  not  been  personally  known  to  de  Thou,  it  was  in- 
evitable that  the  commissioners  should  turn  their  eyes 
upon  him.  That  he  was  intended  to  be  placed  in  the 
university,  is  evident  from  his  patent  of  appointment, 
which  bore  upon  its  face  the  royal  purpose,  '  pour  remettre 
sus  I'universite.'  On  the  strength  of  this  brief  he  had 
relinquished  his  situation  at  Montpellier,  had  come  to 
Paris,  had  seen  the  king,  who  then  repeated  his  promise 
of  the  appointment.  He  then  proceeded  to  remove  his 
family  to  Paris,  and  established  himself  there.  We 
gradually  cease  to  hear  of  the  proposed  professorship,  till 
we  find  Casaubon  in  the  receipt  of  a  pension  unconnected 
with  the  university,  and  waiting  for  the  vacancy  of  the 
place  of  sub-librarian  to  the  king,  of  which  he  has  the 
reversion. 

Notwithstanding  that  we  have  both  Casaubon's  diary 
and  his  confidential  letters  of  this  period,  the  nature  of 
this  hitch  in  the  business  is  nowhere  explicitly  declared. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  had  its  source  in 
the  religious  difficulty. 

By  the  new  statutes  of  the  university  no  person  could 
leach,  or  take  a  degree,  or  even  be  admitted  as  a  bursar  or 
student  of  any  college,  who  did  not  make  profession  of  the 
catholic  religion,  apostolic  and  roman.    This  clause,  npt  in 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  165 

the  old  statutes,  was  introduced  into  the  new  code  of  1600. 
These  statutes  had  been  drawn  by  the  tolerant  party,  and 
emanated  from  the  parlement.  It  is  significant  of  the 
state  of  pubHc  opinion,  and  of  the  reduced  condition  of 
the  huguenots,  that  such  a  clause  should  have  been  forced 
upon  the  framers  of  the  statute.  Indeed,  the  exclusion 
was  not  sufficiently  complete  to  satisfy  the  feeling  of  the 
Parisians.  For  though,  by  the  statute,  the  option  of 
becoming  a  day  scholar  was  left  open  to  the  children  of 
protestants,  in  fact  they  dared  not  avail  themselves  even  of 
this  privilege  \  A  protestant  having,  in  1600,  claimed  his 
right  of  being  admitted  to  the  lectures  of  the  professors,  it. 
required  an  arret  of  the  parlement  of  Paris  to  enforce  it. 
The  parlement  rendered  such  a  decree  in  his  favour.  But 
the  necessity  of  appealing  to  it  is  evidence  that  the  right 
was  not  habitually  enjoyed. 

Casaubon  then,  as  a  dissident,  was  statutably  excluded 
from  any  university  appointment.  It  was  still  possible 
to  have  appointed  him  to  one  of  the  chairs  in  the  college 
royal.  For  these  chairs  were  outside  the  corporation  of 
the  university,  and  were  not  regulated  by  the  new  statutes. 
The  chair  of  latin,  or  '  eloquence,'  as  it  was  styled,  was  not 
vacant.  It  was  filled  by  Federic  Morel  ^,  who  has  left 
memorials  of  himself  in  numerous  greek  editions, 
especially  the  handsome  Libanius  of  1606.  Morel  was 
king's  printer  as  well  as  king's  professor,  and  was  more 
equal  to  the  duties  of  the  former,  than  of  the  latter,  office. 
In  his  Libanius  the  editing  is  by  no  means  on  a  level  with 
the  splendour  of  the  typography.     Ernestine  Reiske  ^  says 

'  [See  Jourdain,  Hist,  de  I'Universite,  p.  8,  and  note.] 

''  Morel  is  styled  by  Goujet,  College  de  France,  a.  326 :  '  Lecteur  et  professeur 
royal  en  eloquence  grecque  et  latin.'  By  Duval,  Coll.  royal,  Par.  1644,  he  is 
placed  among  the  Professors  '  eloquentiae.'  This  is  strictly  correct,  and  it  was, 
perhaps,  because  Morel  occupied  himself  more  with  greek  than  with  latin  that 
Goujet  uses  the  epithet  '  grecque.'  It  is  an  incongruous  epithet,  as,  by  the  usage 
of  the  time,  the  word  '  eloquentia '  was  appropriated  to  the  professor  of  latin. 

'  E.  Reiske,  Libanius,  1791,  t.  i.  prsef.  :  'Textus  Morellianus  adeo  scatet 
vitiis,  ut  rion  alius  scriptor  antiquus  mendosius  editus  videatur.'  Cf.  Reiske, 
prsef.  in  Dion.  Chrysost. 

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l66  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

of  it :  '  Morel's  text  is  so  full  of  faults  that,  perhaps,  no 
other  ancient  author  has  been  so  incorrectly  edited.' 

But  the  chair  of  '  eloquence,'  or  as  we  should  say,  '  latin 
composition,'  was  not  the  one  for  which  Casaubon  was 
particularly  fitted.  For  the  chair  of  greek,  however,  he 
was  without  a  rival ;  by  Scaliger's  own  admission,  the  first 
greek  scholar  in  the  world.  And  by  a  singular  chance  it 
became  vacant  in  1603,  just  when  Casaubon  was  in  Paris, 
and  was  deliberating  whither  he  should  go  for  a  mainte- 
nance. Here  was  an  opportunity,  which  those  who  wished 
to  'restore  the  university'  must  have  gladly  availed 
themselves  of  The  chair  is  immediately  filled — but 
not  by  Casaubon — by  Jerome  Goulu,  a  young  man,  of 
merit  possibly,  but  also  a  protege  of  cardinal  Du  Perron. 
To  this  young  man  of  twenty-two,  the  cardinal  had  the 
effrontery  to  give  a  testimonial  in  which  he  declared  that 
'he  knew  no  one  at  that  time  who  surpassed  him  in  a 
knowledge  of  the  greek  tongue,  and  of  the  authors  who 
have  written  in  it.'  Jerome  Goulu  had  the  sense  not  to 
commit  himself  by  printing  a  single  page  of  greek,  but  to 
justify  his  appointment  in  the  eyes  of  the  university  by  his 
'zeal  for  the  true  religion.'  ^ '  He  would  never  suffer,  as  far 
as  he  could  prevent  it,  any  calvinist  to  take  a  degree.' 
What  else  could  be  expected  in  a  learned  university  in 
which  Pierre  Cayet  was  regius  professor  of  hebrew, 
and  in  which  the  great  question,  whether  or  no  wax 
tapers  for  the  feast  of  the  purification  should  be  distributed 
to  the  grand  messengers,  was  sufficient  to  occupy  all 
minds  ^  ? 

Casaubon  was  not  spoken  of  for  the  greek  professorship. 
It  does  not  appear  that  he  thought  of  it  himself    At  least 

^  Goujet,  Coll.  de  France,  i.  538  :  '  II  etait  z€\€  pour  la  vraie  religion  .  .  . 
ne  soffrit  jamais,  autant  qu'il  fut  en  lui,  qu'aucun  calviniste  s'introduisit  dans  la 
faculty.' 

^  Crevier,  Hist,  de  I'univ.  de  Paris,  7.  48.  The  point  could  not  be  determined 
theologically  on  the  merits.  The  distribution  was  negatived  because  the 
finances  of  the  university  were  not  equal  to  the  expense. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  167 

there  is  no  trace  of  disappointment  in  his  diary  or  letters, 
nor  does  he  anywhere  mention  the  name  of  the  man 
who  had  been  preferred  to  him.  It  was  possible  to  have 
appointed  him  a  supernumerary.  This  was  not  done. 
Though  he  was  officially  styled  '  lecteur  du  roi,'  and  his 
friends  so  addressed  his  private  letters,  he  never  was 
connected  with  the  university  of  Paris.  What  was  done 
was  to  assign  him  a  pension,  and  to  go  on  hinting  at  the 
appointment  in  the  university  as  something  to  come.  We 
must  conclude  that  the  friends  who  procured  the  original 
nomination,  which  was  sent  him  at  Montpellier,  reckoned 
upon  his  conversion.  This  would  have  removed  all 
obstacles,  and  in  no  other  way  could  they  be  removed. 
It  was  supposed  that  Casaubon  was  not  altogether  un- 
willing to  do  what  his  best  friend,  Canaye  de  Fresne,  was 
doing.  All  the  worldly  considerations  pointed  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  public  opinion  had  decided  that  the  balance  of 
controversy  was  heavily  in  favour  of  the  catholic  side  of 
the  question.  We  cannot  be  surprised  that  Casaubon's 
change  of  religion  was  considered  imminent,  that  it  was 
repeatedly  announced  as  an  accomplished  fact.  Baronius  ^ 
himself,  writing  from  Rome,  November,  1603,  says  that  he 
had  heard  of  it  there. 

However  much  his  friends  may  have  desired  to  get 
Casaubon  settled  in  the  university,  they  could  not  have 
done  it  as  long  as  he  remained  a  heretic.  But  it  began 
gradually  to  appear  that  even  if  the  religious  difficulty 
were  removed,  Casaubon  himself  might  not  be  willing  to 
accept  the  appointment.  He  began  to  be  no  longer  so 
desirous  of  it  as  he  had  been  at  first.  His  feeling  on  the 
subject  was  not  the  fastidious  aversion  for  teaching,  as 
such,  which  was  avowed  by  Scaliger.  Casaubon  had  no 
disinclination  to  lecture.  In  the  winter  of  1601-2  he  gave, 
in  his  own  apartment,  a  course  of  greek  lectures,  first  on 

'  Bumey  mss.  363. 


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i68  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Herodotus,  and  afterwards  on  Aristophanes  \  These 
were  originally  intended  for  some  six  or  seven  young 
friends  of  his  own.  But  no  sooner  was  it  known  that 
Casaubon  was  giving  a  greek  lecture  than  his  room  was 
crowded  by  men  of  distinction  from  all  parts  of  Paris. 
Even  this  gave  such  umbrage  to  the  professors  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water,  that  '  strong  reasons '  were  soon 
given  him  which  induced  him  to  discontinue.  Health  was 
the  plea  easily^,  and  too  truly,  alleged  for  his  sudden 
withdrawal  from  teaching.  He  never  again  attempted  it, 
and  though  enjoying  brevet  rank  as  '  regius  reader,'  from 
this  time  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  university  ='. 

For  as  he  came  to  see  the  university  nearer,  he  dis- 
cerned that,  difficulty  of  creed  apart,  it  was  no  place  for 
him.  The  university  of  Paris,  once  the  symbol  and  centre 
of  European  intelligence,  was  sunk  into  a  corporation  of 
trading  teachers,  whose  highest  ambition  was  to  compete 
with  the  Jesuits  in  a  lucrative  profession.  It  was  become 
a  school,  of  which  the  professors  were  the  masters.  They 
shrank  from  contact  with  real  knowledge,  such  as  Casaubon 
possessed,  and  carried  it  loftily  towards  him  on  the  ground 
of  their  superior  orthodoxy.  They  shut  themselves  up 
with  their  pupils,  before  whose  wondering  eyes  they 
paraded  their  crude  reading.  A  portrait  of  a  professor  of 
the  period  has  been  drawn  for  us  by  Casaubon,  who  never 
draws  upon  his  imagination,  in  the  person  of  Theodore 
Marcilius.  Marcihus  had  succeeded  Passerat  as  professor 
of  eloquence  *  in  the  college  royal.      A  Dutchman,  but  a 

'  Ep.  294  :  '  Cum  amicorum  rogatu,  in  privatis  aedibus,  ejus  (Herodoti)  inter- 
pretationem  suscepissem  horis  succisivis.'  Two  sets  of  notes,  taken  down  by 
hearers,  are  still  preserved  in  the  Bibl.  nat.  anc.  fends.  6252.  I  do  not  know  if 
either  of  them  is  in  the  writing  of  Pierre  Du  Puy.  But  Rigaltius  says  (Vita 
Puteani  p.  662)  that  Pierre  Du  Puy  and  his  two  elder  brothers  were  among 
Casaubon's  auditors. 

^  Ep.  294 :  '  Causas  graves  habui,  ut  valetudini  mese  consulerem,  et  ab- 
stinerem.' 

'  Ep.  687  :  '  Ego  res  academise  hujus  non  magis  attingo,  quam  vel  tu,  vel  qui- 
cunque  alius  hinc  abest  dis  ttop^oitAtw.' 

*  As  Morel  was  at  this  time  professor '  eloquentise,'  there  must  have  been  two 


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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  169 

catholic,  he  had  been  trained  in  the  school  of  much 
reading.  His  learning  was  prodigious.  A  small  man  of 
wiry  frame,  and  sound  health,  he  had  passed  ten  years, 
like  another  Pythagoras,  so  ran  the  legend,  without 
quitting  the  walls  of  his  college,  the  college  of  Plessis,  in 
which  he  had  taught  a  class,  before  becoming  regius 
professor.  He  had  read  so  much  that  Scaliger^  wickedly 
said  of  him  that  he  'had  read  himself  into  ignorance.' 
But  he  had  also  read  himself  into  renown.  The  hermit  of 
the  college  de  Plessis  was  ^ '  grand  personnage.'  When 
Casaubon  first  came  to  Paris,  1599,  Marcilius  sent  him  a 
message,  that  if  he  wished  to  see  him  he  might  call  upon 
him.  Casaubon  meekly  comphed,  and  his  account  of  his 
visit,  written  to  Scaliger,  rises,  for  once,  almost  into 
humour.  Presenting  himself  at  the  college  gate,  he  was 
bidden  to  mount  to  the  top  of  a  staircase  pointed  out  by 
the  porter.  Here,  under  the  tiles,  he  found  the  '  paeda- 
gogorum  Apollo '  in  an  apartment,  the  walls  of  which  were 
lined  with  pigeon-holes.  In  these  were  stored  away  the 
fruits  of  his  vigils,  not  in  one,  but  in  all,  departments  of 
ancient  learning.  There  were  commentaries  on  the  civil 
law ,'  treatises  on  roman  antiquities ;  translations  of  the 
principal  Aristotelian  treatises.  What  he  most  prized  were 
the  notes  of  his  philological  lectures,  on  the  greek  and 
latin  classics,  which  had  been  accumulating  during  his 
twenty  years'  teaching,  first  at  Toulouse,  then  at  Paris. 
He  informed  Casaubon  that  the  trifles  he  had  hitherto 


co-ordinate  professors  of  the  same  subject.  Or  Morel  may  have  been  '  professor 
emeritus.'  Goujet,  Hist,  du  college  de  France,  is  much  more  full  than  Duval, 
but  is  wanting  in  exactness,  as  vsrell  as  in  appreciation  of  his  own  matter. 
[From  161 1,  and  perhaps  before  that  year,  Morel  styles  himself  '  Professorum 
regiorum  decanus.'] 

^  Seal,  to  Cas. ,  Seal.  Epp.  p.  198  :  '  Quum  animum  remittere  volo,  assumo  in 
manus  scripta  illius  qui  amphitheatrum  Martialis,  et  Persium,  nuper  icaraKixoSev. 
nam  nunquam  suavius  rideo,  quam  cum  aliquid  ejus  lucumonis  video,  ssepe 
mirari  soleo  ilium  tantum  scriptorum  legisse,  ideo  ut  nihil  sciret  .  .  .  et 
tamen  habet  admiratores.  habeat     .     .     .     sed  Parisienses.' 

^  Scaligerana  a?,  p.  151. 


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170  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

edited,  such  as  the  'Aurea  carmina,'  and  the  'Martial,' 
were  the  foHies  of  his  youth,  and  that  what  he  should 
publish  henceforth  would  be  of  a  very  different  order,  but 
that  they  would  not  see  the  light  till  all  the  learned  of  the 
day  had  printed  their  blundering  attempts.  It  was  no 
secret  to  Casaubon  who  were  meant.  He  had  been  told 
that  Marcilius  was  accustomed  to  spice  his  lectures  with 
contemptuous  flings  at  Scaliger  and  himself,  and  to  correct 
their  mistakes  for  the  edification  of  his  class  ^.  The 
removal  to  Paris,  which  brought  Casaubon  nearer,  made 
the  man  of  real  learning  more  offensive  to  the  charlatan. 
Marcilius  redoubled  the  bitterness  of  his  invectives.  He 
certainly  succeeded  in  provoking  irritation.  Casaubon, 
who  was  submissive  to  the,  arrogance  of  Scaliger,  could 
not  brook  the  presumption  of  Marcilius.  His  language  to 
his  correspondents  about  Marcilius  displays  a  passionate 
displeasure,  which  seems  disproportionate  to  its  object. 
Casaubon,  indeed,  was  extremely  thin-skinned.  Had  he 
been  the  butt  of  a  tenth  part  of  the  obloquy  which 
Scaliger  had  to  bear,  it  must  have  killed  him.  Marcilius' 
insults  drew  from  him  expressions  of  anger  more  con- 
temptuous than  he  exhibits  towards  any  other  person 
whatever.  Nor  was  the  antipathy  confined  to  private 
letters.  Casaubon  takes  occasion,  in  various  of  his  notes ^, 
to  make  sarcastic  allusions  to  an  ignoramus  whom  he  does 
not  name.  To  Scaliger  he  writes  that  he  ^'has  been 
reading  the  stuff  which  a  Parisian  schoolmaster,  the  most 
arrogant  of  all  living  two-legged  creatures,  has  blurted  out 
about  Persius.  Before  I  took  the  book  up  I  knew  I  was 
not  to  expect  great  things  from  the  buffoon,  but  the 
ignorance,  the  stupendous  asinity  of  the  man,  is  beyond 
anything  I  had  conceived.'      It  could  not   but  gall  him 

'  Cas.  ep.  199. 

^  See,  among  other  passages,  Hist.  Aug.  Scriptt.  (ed.  1603)  p.  565  :  •  Com- 
modum  offertur  mihi  musteus  adhuc  liber  pantosophomastigis  illius  magistelli,' 
etc.  s  Ep.  370. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  171 

to  see  ^ '  this  discreditable  pretender  drawn  from  his  ob- 
scurity and  placed  in  that  chair  from  which  Turnebus, 
Mercerus,  and  other  eminent  men  have  in  old  time 
delivered  oracles.  Happy  you  who  see  not  these  things.' 
Marcilius,  from  the  regius  chair,  continued  to  bespatter 
Casaubon^,  till  he  was  informed  that  the  king  had 
expressed  his  displeasure.  He  then  changed  his  tone,  and 
sent  a  Catullus  of  his  editing  (the  Catullus  of  1604),  with 
a  message  to  Casaubon,  that  he  was  now  sorry  for  having 
assailed  him,  and  wished  to  be  friends  with  him.  Cas- 
aubon, who  was  as  placable  as  he  was  inflammatory, 
accepted  the  apology,  and  sent  MarciHus  word  that  he 
had  only  to  speak,  as  he  ought  to  speak,  of  those  who 
had  done  letters  good  service,  and  he  should  find  a  friend 
in  Casaubon. 

Casaubon's  time  in  Paris  was  being  spent  very  little  to 
his  own  satisfaction.  '  O  jacturam  temporis ! '  records  the 
diary  of  July  23,  1602.  On  July  24  the  same  complaint. 
'  Busy  the  whole  day,  yet  very  few  hours  well  spent.'  On 
the  25th  he  writes  to  Hoeschel  ^ :  '  A  thoroughly  wretched 
life  it  is  that  I  lead  here ;  not  among  my  books,  but  among 
engagements  of  I  know  not  what  kind,  which  sometimes 
do  not  allow  of  my  opening  a  book  from  morning  till  night. 
Life  cannot  but  be  bitter  to  me,  when  I  am  thus  robbed  of 
my  one  solace.  I  have  now  been  returned  home  fifteen 
days,  and  have  hardly  had  as  many  hours'  reading,  all  the 
rest  of  the  time  has  been  taken  from  me  by  friends,  or  by 
the  discharge  of  social  duties.' 

His  day  was  then  only  spent  to  his  satisfaction  when  he 
had  had  it  for  unbroken  study  from  early  dawn. 

One  serious  drain  upon  his  time,  which  he  felt  sorrow- 
fully, but  did  not  dare  to  complain  of,  was  attendance  at 
court.     From  time  to  time  Casaubon  waited  on  the  king  at 

•  Cas.  to  Seal.  ep.  370. 

^  Gillot  to  Seal.  ep.  fran9.  p.  loi :  '  Ce  fol  insens6,  arrogant,  de  Marcilius  a 
escrit  centre  M.  Casaubon  des  injures  de  harangere.' 
'  Ep.  298. 

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17a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  Louvre,  a  duty  which  was  expected  of  all  who  belonged 
to  the  court,  in  which  category  the  '  lecteurs  du  roi '  were 
included.  He  was  always  received  with  favour,  sometimes, 
as  he  notes,  with  marked  distinction.  '  June  19,  1602  : 
The  king,  as  usual,  received  me  most  graciously,  and 
called  me,  in  jest,  "  an  accomplice  of  Biron."  Then 
becoming  grave,  he  said,  (I  give  his  very  words),  "  Vous 
voyez  combien  j'ai  de  peine  afin  que  vous  estudiez  sure- 
ment." '  When  Casaubon,  in  the  same  year,  meditated 
removal  from  court,  the  king  caused  it  to  be  intimated  to 
him  that  he  desired  his  stay,  and  gave  him  ^ '  no  small 
testimony  of  his  favour.'  On  more  than  one  occasion 
Henri  repeated  his  intention  of  appointing  Casaubon 
custodian  of  the  library,  whenever  the  office  should  be- 
come vacant.  July  5,  1601,  the  diary  records  'a  day  lost 
in  attendance  at  court.  Yet  perhaps  it  was  worth  something 
to  have  received  so  marked  a  token  of  the  king's  favour.' 
What  the  token—'  non  obscurum  testimonium  ' — was,  we 
learn,  this  time,  from  a  letter  of  Gillot  to  Scaliger  ^,  giving 
an  account  of  this  very  interview.  'The  day  before 
yesterday  the  king  gave  Casaubon  a  hearty  reception, 
reproaching  him  with  having  wished  to  leave  him,  and 
telling  him  "  he  would  never  find  so  good  a  master  who 
would  love  him  as  he  (the  king)  did.  That  he  intended  to 
place  him  in  his  library,  and  that  the  present  librarian 
could  not  live  another  year.  That  he  should  then  look  up 
his  fine  books,  and  tell  him  what  was  in  them,  for  he  him- 
self didn't  understand  things  of  that  sort."  In  a  word,  he 
treated  Casaubon  with  marked  distinction.  Yesterday 
Casaubon  supped  with  me,  when  I  encouraged  him  in  his 
resolution  to  remain  among  us,  telling  him  there  were  still 
many  of  us  who  were  his  admirers,  and  honoured  his 
virtue,  and  that  he  would  want  for  nothing.  I  feel  sure 
that  he  will  make  up  his  mind  to  stay.  Indeed,  do  what 
we  will,  we  cannot,  and  do  not,  deserve  to  keep  him.     I 

'  Ep.  274.  2  Ep.  fran?.  p.  105. 

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»V.]  PARIS.     1600-1610. 


173 


hardly  think  France  is  worthy  of  such  a  man,  whether  one 
regards  his  learning  or  his  character.  I  never  part  from 
him  myself  without  feeling  the  better  for  his  company.'  It 
should  be  remembered  that  the  writer  was  a  catholic,  and, 
though  a  counsellor  in  the  parlement,  held  a  canonry  in 
the  Sainte  Chapelle.  Henri's  favour  towards  Casaubon 
was  founded  on  a  personal  liking,  and  was  maintained  in 
spite  of  Casaubon's  protestantism.  Henri  iv.  was  not  one 
of  those  cradled  princes  who  can  know  of  men  only  what 
they  are  told,  and  who  thus  become  the  sure  prey  of  syco^ 
phants  and  partisans.  Early  and  long  training  in  the  equal 
school  of  camps  had  made  him  a  shrewd  judge  of  charac- 
ter. He  was,  says  Dupleix  ^,  '  autant  habile  qu'homme  de 
son  royaume  pour  juger  de  I'humeur  et  du  merite  des 
personnes.'  Frank  and  sociable,  he  liked  to  talk  with 
Casaubon  ;  not  as  James  i.  did,  of  '  classics,  fathers,  wits,' 
but  he  heard  from  him  of  Geneva,  of  Montpellier,  of  the 
grievances  and  wishes  of  the  calvinists.  He  took  Casau- 
bon's learning  for  granted,  but  appreciated  the  sterling 
worth  of  the  man.  At  times  he  was  angry  at  Casaubon's 
'  obstinacy';  at  times  he  understood  that  there  was  a  depth 
of  conviction  which  could  not  be  reached  by  the  trivial 
topics  of  controversial  rhetoric. 

Standing  thus  high  in  the  royal  favour,  and  with  these 
repeated  promises  of  the  succession  to  the  library,  it  was 
to  be  supposed  that,  whenever  the  vacancy  should  occur 
Casaubon  would  step  into  the  place  as  matter  of  course 
The  promises,  indeed,  were  not  confined  to  mere  words 
In  November,  1601,  a  patent  was  issued  to  Casaubon,  in 
regular  form,  appointing  him  to  the  office  of  librarian 
though  with  the  proviso  that  the  present  holder,  Gosselin 
should  not  be  disturbed.  The  salary,  however,  named  in 
the  instrument,  and  which  was  to  be  in  addition  to  his 
pension,  was  to   commence   at   once.     Casaubon,   with 

•  Dupleix,  Hist,  de  France,  quoted  by  Cretineau-Joly,  Hist,  de  la  comp.  de 
Jesus,  3.  36. 

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174  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

great  delicacy,  never  mentioned  to  Gosselin  that  he  was 
in  possession  of  such  a  patent.  This  was  all  the  more 
creditable,  as  Casaubon  was  perpetually  being  thwarted  in 
his  natural  curiosity  to  explore  the  treasures  of  the  library, 
by  the  morose  temper  of  the  custodian.  '  I  knew  his  way,' 
writes  Scaliger  ^  in  1605,  '  forty-four  years  ago ;  too 
ignorant  to  use  the  library  himself,  too  jealous  to  allow 
others  to  use  it.' 

Scaliger's  reminiscence  carries  us  back  to  1561,  the 
commencement  of  Gosselin's  librarianship.  He  was  ap- 
pointed in  1560,  and  held  the  office  four-and-forty  years. 
Jean  Gosselin  was  not  an  ignorant  man,  at  least  only 
relatively  so.  He  was  a  mathematician,  and  author  of 
several  treatises  in  that  department^.  He  was  well  known 
in  the  literary  society  of  the  former  generation,  and  is 
celebrated  among  the  wits  of  the  day  by  La  Boderie,  in  la 
Galliade  (1578),  '  GosseUn,  ornement  de  sa  ville  de  Vire, 
etc'  But  of  the  greek  and  latin  mss.,  of  which  he  was 
keeper,  he  was,  likely  enough,  ignorant,  and  probably 
threw  impediments  in  the  way  of  the  young  and  impetuous 
Gascon,  who  rushed  upon  the  king's  mss.  as  he  afterwards 
did  upon  those  of  Cujas  at  Valence,  ^ '  M.  Cujas  disoit  que 
j'avais  depucelle  les  mss.'  If  Gossehn  was  ignorant  of  the 
contents  of  his  books,  he  was  their  faithful  custodian, 
through  risks  and  adventures  far  more  serious  than  those 
which  our  royal  library  went  through  in  the  time  of  the 
Commonwealth.  Gosselin  was  now  in  the  imbeciUty  of 
extreme  old  age,  but  still  clutched  his  treasures  with 
-desperate  grip.  He  was  near  one  hundred  years  old,  and 
might  have  lived  on,  but  for  accident. 

In  November,  1604,  the  poor  old  man  came  to  a  melan- 
choly end.     Left  by  his  attendant  sitting  alone  before  the 


'  Seal.  ep.  p.  273. 

*  A  list  of  his  publications  is  given  by  FrSre,  Manuel  de  bibliogr.  normande, 
2.  32.    Some  account  of  Gosselin  is  given  in  the  Bulletin  du  bibliophile  for  1871. 
^  Scaligerana  s".  p.  60. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  175 

fire,  he  was  found  in  the  morning  burnt  to  death,  having 
fallen  out  of  his  chair  in  helpless  decrepitude  ^.  The  post  of 
librarian  thus  vacant,  why  did  not  Casaubon  immediately 
come  forward  and  claim  an  appointment  which  was  already 
his  own  ? 

Legal  instruments  and  royal  nominations  were  facts  of 
weight,  but  in  France  at  this  time  there  was  another  power 
which  was  weightier  still  ^.  The  vacancy  in  the  library 
had  occurred  at  a  moment  when  the  ultramontane  flood 
had  risen  higher  than  ever.  The  furious  fanaticism  of  the 
League  was  indeed  out  of  fashion,  but  it  had  been 
followed,  not  by  a  reaction,  but  by  a  more  cool  and 
calculating  political  Catholicism.  The  terrorism  of  the  S. 
Bartholomew  had  done  its  work,  and  it  was  now  replaced 
by  the  system  of  political  exclusion.  In  vain  the  edict  of 
Nantes  declared  protestants  admissible  to  all  offices  and 
employments,  it  was  a  mere  paper  law  which  could  not  be 
enforced.  Exclusion  was  the  mot  d'ordre.  For  any  pro- 
testant  who  wanted  a  career  there  was  only  one  way  open 
— '  se  faire  catholique.'  The  power  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
popularity  of  the  religious  orders,  which  had  been  distinctly 
seen  to  totter  fifty  years  before,  was  now  higher  than  ever. 
Swarms  of  orders,  new  and  old,  male  and  female,  recollets, 
feuillants,  teresians,  capucins,  barnabites,  settled  down 
upon  the  fair  face  of  France.  The  grand  affair  of  1603  had 
been  the  recall  of  the  Jesuits.  To  get  the  Jesuits  back  to 
France,  and  to  give  the  king  a  Jesuit  confessor,  these  were 
the  objects  of  the  highest  European  statesmanship.  In 
1603  they  were  achieved.  Henri,  who  had  contracted  a 
second  marriage  at  the  age  of  forty-seven,  and  had  sup- 
plied the  place  of  Gabrielle  with  Henriette,  was  besides 

'  Ep.  428  :  '  Relictus  a  famulo  decrepitus  senex  ante  focum,  semiustulatus  et 
vitse  expers  postridie  est  inventus.'  Compare  with  this  Lestoile,  Reg.  journal, 
suppl.  p.  380,  ed.  Champollion.  Scaligerana  a",  p.  97.  The  attendant  was  sus- 
pected of  having  hastened  his  master's  end,  but,  it  seems,  without  grounds. 

^  Ep.  256  :  '  Quod  si  non  obstaret  pontificis  Romani  respectus,  pridem  factum 
asset,  ut  regis  jussu  publice  doceremus.' 

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176  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

visibly  enfeebled  by  an  obstinate  disorder,  and  yielded  to 
the  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  him.  Father  Coton 
was  passed  upon  him.  By  his  insinuating  address,  by  an 
adroit  mixture  of  terrorism  and  meekness,  he  completely 
tamed  the  prince.  Henri  was  charmed  with  him,  had  never 
had  any  confessor  like  him.  Fascinated  himself  by  the 
address  of  the  Jesuit,  he  supposed  others  must  yield  to  the 
charm.  Unfortunately  he  ordered  Coton  to  try  his  powers 
upon  Casaubon.  By  the  king's  command  Casaubon 
waited  upon  the  Jesuit  in  the  library.  But  Casaubon,  who 
was  occasionally  seriously  embarrassed  by  the  learned 
objections  of  Du  Perron,  was  not  in  any  danger  from  the 
honeyed  tongue  of  Coton,  in  whom  Gillot  ^  found  that 
'  though  he  talks  well,  he  has  d'instruction  peu  ou  point.' 
Coton's  failure  exasperated  him,  and  he  resolved  that 
Casaubon  should  not  have  the  library.  The  danger  was 
dwelt  upon  of  committing  the  custody  of  the  books  to  a 
heretic,  who  might  make  an  ill  use  of  what  he  found  in 
them.  They  told  Henri  that  Lipsius  was  the  most  learned 
man  of  the  age,  and  should  be  invited  from  Flanders  to  be 
librarian.  Casaubon  is  not  only  heretic,  but  an  '  obstinate 
heretic,'  i.  e.  one  that  knows  the  truth  and  hardens  himself 
against  it,  and  has  not  the  excuse  of  ignorance. 

The  king  took  to  the  suggestion  of  Lipsius'  name.  '  I 
have  been  told,'  he  said  one  day  to  Thiou  des  Fortes,, 
'that  Lipsius  is  the  most  learned  man  of  the  age.'  Des 
Fortes  immediately  named  Scaliger,  affirming  that  Scaliger 
possessed  more  knowledge  of  all  sciences  and  all 
languages  than  Lipsius  had  of  any  one.  Henri  replied, 
'  They  have  never  told  me  that.'  Des  Fortes  ventured  to 
say  that  '  after  Scaliger,  Casaubon  deserved  to  be  included 
in  the  very  small  number  of  the  truly  learned,'  and  added 
adroitly,  'they  are  both  Frenchmen.'  The  lawyers  also 
pointed  out  to  the  king  the  danger  of  the  precedent  if 
an  appointment  once  made  were  cancelled  on  a  religious 

>  Ep,  fran9.  p.  435. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  177 

ground.  This  the  church  party  met  by  a  proposal  to  call 
the  young  Grotius  from  the  Hague,  in  order  to  make 
it  appear  that  the  objection  to  Casaubon  was  not  merely 
his  protestantism.  When  Casaubon  was  told  of  this 
manoeuvre,  he  only  remarked  'that  if  Grotius  would  be 
pleased  to  come,  he  (Casaubon)  would  be  well  pleased  to 
see  him  there.' 

The  matter  being  thus  in  suspense,  Casaubon's  friends 
thought  that  his  best  chance  lay  in  a  personal  application 
to  the  monarch.  They  built  upon  the  public  favour  with 
which  he  was  always  received,  and  the  esteem  which 
Henri  had  always  been  accustomed  to  express  for  the 
threadbare  scholar.  As  long  as  the  king  was  absent, 
Casaubon  sturdily  refused  to  make  any  suit  to  the 
secretary,  Villeroy,  or  to  move  in  the  matter  at  all  ^  But 
when  Henri  returned  to  Paris  from  the  Sedan  expedition 
in  December,  Casaubon  could  not  refuse  to  pay  his 
respects  among  the  rest,  and,  as  assistant  in  the  library,  to 
inform  him  of  Gosselin's  death.  This  he  did  simply, 
without  reminding  Henri  of  his  promise,  or  proffering  any 
solicitation  for  himself  He  did  not  fail  to  observe  the 
unwonted  coldness  of  the  king's  manner,  and  withdrew  in 
the  belief  that  the  day  of  his  favour  was  gone  by.  Great, 
then,  was  his  astonishment  when,  three  days  afterwards, 
the  king's  private  secretary  came  to  him  with  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  royal  library,  ready  made  out^  and,  what  was 
more,  with  an  augmentation  of  400  livres  to  his  former 
salary.  The  influence  was  that  of  de  Thou,  an  influence 
never  exerted  but  for  good,  and  though  just  now  mini- 
mized, yet  never  wholly  destroyed  even  in  the  worst 
T:imes.  In  June,  1605,  Gillot  ^  writes  to  Scaliger,  '  We  are 
now  completely  under  the  loyolite  yoke.  There  is  a 
general  rush  into  their  camp.     Father  Gossyp  (Coton)  is 

•  Ep.  371 :  '  Securus  in  museo  expecto  quid  jussurus  sit,  cujus  est  imperium 
(i.  e.  the  king),  nam  ut  de  ea  re  verba  cuiquam  faciam,  nemo  a  me  impetraverit.' 
"  Ep.  fran9.  p.  416. 

N 

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3  78  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  greatest  person  that  ever  was.  We  breathe  only 
Rome,  "et  Gallia  submittit  fasces."  The  first  president 
(Harlay)  has  been  ill  of  a  fever,  and  many  an  ear  was 
pricked  up  thereupon.  God  preserve  us  from  such  a 
change ;  for  he,  with  our  de  Thou,  is  the  only  one  who 
has  still  some  hold  over  the  helm,  and  still  makes  head 
against  a  general  wreck.'  The  welcome  addition  to 
his  salary  was  the  unsolicited  act  of  Villeroy  ^.  Villeroy, 
though  ex-leaguer,  Spanish,  a  corrupt  intriguer  who  was 
for  an  exclusively  cathohc  policy,  was  generous  in  money 
matters,  and  not  with  the  public  money  only,  and  now 
threw  a  scrap  to  a  starving  scholar.  Scaliger  expressed 
himself^  highly  gratified,  not  only  with  Casaubon's 
success,  but  with  the  check  given  to  the  Jesuit  party, 
who  had  used  all  their  influence  against  him.  At  the 
same  time,  he  warned  his  friend  that  the  same  interest 
which  had  worked  to  keep  him  out  would  be  incessantly 
plied  against  him,  and  therefore  his  position  would  call 
for  great  circumspection. 

The  office  which  the  dominant  party  had  thought  it 
worth  while  to  dispute,  and  which  had  been  variously  in- 
trigued for  by  others  underhand,  by  interest,  and  by  money  *, 
was  in  value  400  livres,  about  ;^35  sterling,  per  annum. 
It  was  the  pay  of  a  professor  in  a  provincial  university 
— a  classical,  not  a  law  professor,  these  got  much  higher 
stipends, — or  a  principal  regent  in  a  provincial  college. 

The  official  title  was  '  Garde  de  la  librairie  du  roi,' 
'  keeper,'  in  fact,  sub-librarian  under  the  '  Maitre  de  la 
librairie.'  The  maitre  at  present  was  de  Thou,  a  position 
which  had  enabled  him,  at  the  last  moment,  to  exert  a 
deciding  influence  in  the  appointment  of  the  garde.     The 

^  Villeroy  befriended  Casaubon  to  the  last.  Henri  iv's  discriminating 
character  of  this  old  servant  of  the  crown  may  be  read  in  the  Pseudo-SuUy,  7. 
224 ;  among  other  things,  it  is  said  of  him  ;  '  II  a  le  coeur  g^nereux ;  n'est  nuUe- 
ment  adonne  a  I'avarice.' 

^  Seal.  Epp.  p.  272. 

'  Cas.  Ep.  376  :  '  Cum  alii  gratia,  alii  pecunia,  rem  tentarent.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  179 

office  of  maitre  had  been  created  by  Francis  i.  in  1522.  It 
was  intended  to  be,  and  had  been  hitherto  regarded  as, 
a  post  of  dignity,  the  highest  Uterary  prize  in  the  realm. 
It  carried  the  salary  of  a  household  officer,  1200  livres, 
about  ;^iio  sterling,  and  imposed  no  laborious  duties. 
The  services  of  personal  attendance  and  administration 
were  discharged  by  the  keeper. 

The  library  was  not,  in  its  original  destination,  a  public 
library ;  it  was  the  king's  library,  and  had  been  formed  for 
the  use,  or  the  pride,  of  the  monarch.  It  is  an  interesting 
fact  in  the  hfe  of  the  unfortunate  Peter  Ramus,  that  he 
was  the  first  person  to  suggest  that  the  books  should  be 
removed  to  Paris,  to  be  made  useful  to  the  learned. 
The  primitive  nucleus  of  the  collection  had  been  formed 
in  the  chateau  at  Blois.  Francis  i.  had  the  books  at  Blois 
removed  to  Fontainebleau,  and  may  be  considered  the 
real  creator  of  the  library,  which  is  now  the  bibliotheque 
nationale,  by  the  vast  collections  which  he  caused  to  be 
made.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  ix,  books  were  not  in  de- 
mand at  court,  and  Ramus'  proposition  to  convert  the  king's 
library  to  the  use  of  the  public  was  graciously  acceded  to. 
The  collection  was  removed  to  Paris,  not  to  the  Louvre, 
but  to  some  room  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  colleges, 
though  the  precise  situation  is  not  ascertainable.  Like  our 
own  royal  library  during  the  reign  of  the  puritans,  the 
library  of  Francis  i.  ran  great  dangers  during  the  league. 
Gosselin,  who  had  come  with  it  from  Fontainebleau,  was  in 
charge  of  it  all  through  the  troubles,  and  has  left  a  short 
account  of  its  escape^-  Casaubon  used  to  chafe  at 
Gosselin  for  impeding  his  free  access  to  the  books,  but 
Gosselin's  experiences  are  his  sufficient  excuse.  He 
thanks  God  for  having  given  him  grace  to  save  this  library 
several  times  from  dispersion  or  ruin,  and  notably  during 

'  Gosselin's  own  narrative  has  been  found  recently.  It  is  a  memorandum 
written  on  the  first  page  of  a  MS,  La  Marguerite  of  Jean  Massue.  It  has  been 
printed  in  the  Bulletin  du  bibliophile,  187 1,  p.  415. 

N    3 

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l8o  ISAAC   CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  last  troubles,  when  some  of  the  imps  of  the  league 
would  have  forced  themselves  into  the  place  under  colour 
of  ordering  it  after  their  fashion.  Gosselin,  thinking  that 
they  would  have  more  liberty  to  do  mischief  if  he  were 
there,  ,than  if  he  were  out  of  the  way,  withdrew  to  the 
royalist  head-quarters,  at  S.  Denis,  fastening  the  door  of 
the  library  with  a  strong  lock,  and  besides  with  a  padlock 
attached  to  a  stout  bar  of  iron  on  the  inside.  So 
effectually  had  Gosselin  secured  the  door  that  de  NuUy 
was  unable  to  force  it  open,  and  was  compelled  to  break  a 
hole  in  the  wall  to  get  in.  He  was  there  several  times 
with  his  folk,  and  each  time  they  were  seen  to  retire 
carrying  pretty  big  packages  away  under  their  cloaks. 
Barrabas  (Barnabas)  Brisson,  who  however  might  plead 
that  he  knew  how  to  use  books,  more  decently  borrowed  a 
great  many.  After  his  unhappy  end,  his  widow  sold  them 
for  a  mere  song.  After  the  surrender  of  Paris  to  Henri  iv, 
Gosselin  returned  to  find  the  havoc  which  had  been 
committed.  But  the  perils  of  the  library  were  not  yet  at 
an  end  i.  A  claimant  arose  for  the  whole  collection  in  the 
person  of  the  cardinal  Bourbon,  who  said  that  Henri  iii. 
had  given  it  to  him.  It  required  an  interposition  of  despotic 
authority  on  the  part  of  Henri  iv.  to  vindicate  it  as  an 
heirloom  of  the  crown.  He  sent  the  claimant  word  that 
'he  (the  king)  could  take  better  care  of  it  than  could 
the  cardinal,  and  that  the  cardinal  was  rich  enough  to  buy 
himself  another.'  After  a  series  of  adventures  of  this 
character,  we  can  hardly  wonder  if  Gosselin  forgot  every- 
thing except  the  safe  custody  of  his  treasures. 

When  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  Paris,  1595,  the 
college  of  Clermont,  rue  S.  Jacques,  was  appropriated  for 
the  reception  of  the  books,  and  the  revenues  of  the  college, 
not  very  considerable,  were  laid  out  in  binding.  De  Thou 
obtained  a  rich  accession  for  the   hbrary  in   the  books 

'  Buckley's  Sylloge  scriptorum,  [added  to  his  edition  of  de  Thou,  1733,] 
Thuana,  p.  200. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  181 

of  Catherine  de  Medicis.  These,  chiefly  mss,  many  greek, 
gathered  in  Italy,  had  belonged  to  marshal  Strozzi. 
Catherine,  who  had  sumptuous  tastes,  had  bought  the 
collection  from  Strozzi's  heirs.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  say  they  had  not,  at  her  death,  been  paid  for.  As  she 
did  not  leave  anything,  ^ '  pas  meme  un  seul  sol,'  the 
creditors  seized  the  books,  or  would  have  done  so,  but  for 
the  abbe  de  Bellebranche,  who  saved  them  till  they  also 
were  claimed  by  Henri  iv,  and  united  with  the  royal  books 
in  the  college  of  Clermont  in  1599.  Here  the  library  re- 
mained from  October  1595  to  1605.  In  this  year,  the  first 
of  Casaubon's  librarianship,  the  Jesuits  recovered  their 
college,  and  would  have  been  well  pleased  to  keep  the 
books  too.  They  said  they  had  lost  a  good  library  by 
confiscation,  and  would  have  to  form  another.  But  de 
Thou  and  Casaubon  were  able  to  save  the  books,  though 
they  had  to  evacuate  the  building,  and  they  removed  their 
treasures  to  an  empty  hall  in  the  great  convent  of  the 
Cordeliers,  famous  in  1790,  which  occupied  the  site  of 
the  present  ecole  de  medecine  ^.  It  was  close  to  the  porte 
S.  Germain,  and  to  the  city  wall.  After  Casaubon,  the 
guardian  lived  in  the  library.  But  it  was  not  possible  for  a 
married  man  to  live  within  the  enceinte  of  a  Franciscan 
convent,  and  Casaubon  had  to  hire  an  apartment  close  by ; 
'  vis-a-vis  des  Cordeliers,'  his  letters  are  addressed.  This 
was  the  seventh  removal  that  he  had  undergone  in  less 
than  seven  years  since  his  first  arrival  in  Paris.  He 
complains  that  now  he  could  no  longer  find  his  own  books, 
he  had  so  often  placed  and  replaced  them  in  a  different 
arrangement.  This  house,  outside  the  porte  S.  Germain, 
and  therefore  in  the  faubourg,  not  in  the  city,  is  the  house 
which  was  remembered  in  after  times  as  Casaubon's 
house  ^.     For  this  house  he  says  he  paid  400  livres. 

'  Brantome,  i.  85. 

"  The  musee  Dupuytren  stands  on  the  site  of  the  refectory. 

'  See  above,  p.  153. 

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1 8a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

It  must  have  been  with  peculiar  gratification  that  Casau- 
bon,  who  all  his  life  had  been  thirsting  for  books,  found  so 
rich  a  treasure  all  at  once  at  his  uncontrolled  disposition. 
In  greek  mss.  the  king's  library  was  then,  as  it  still  is, 
second  only  to  the  Vatican.  The  actual  number  of  mss.  in 
the  united  libraries  was  considerable ;  but  as  there  was  no 
complete  catalogue,  and  no  numeration,  the  quantity  was 
as  usual  exaggerated  by  the  anticipations  of  the  learned 
world.  A  catalogue,  which  was  compiled  by  Casaubon's 
successor,  Rigault,  in  1620,  informs  us  that  the  total  of  the 
Fontainebleau  collection  was  upwards  of  4700  mss.  But 
of  these  the  greater  part  were  modern  papers,  charters, 
records,  and  state  documents.  At  least  260  of  these  were 
greek  mss,  for  the  old  catalogue  ofVergecio  (circ.  1550) 
vouches  for  that  number.  To  these  must  be  added  Cathe- 
rine's books.  These  numbered  4500  volumes,  of  which 
800 — the  Strozzi  collection — were  mss,  greek,  latin,  or 
hebrew.  But  the  interest  excited  by  the  deposit  was 
occasioned  not  so  much  by  the  number  of  volumes,'  as  by 
the  fact  that  the  mss.  had  been  only  partially  examined. 
During  a  librarianship  of  forty-four  years  Gosselin  had 
not  accomplished  the  task  of  making  a  catalogue.  If 
we  are  disposed  to  think  that  this  lache  substantiates 
Scaliger's  charge  of  ignorance,  and  that  Gosselin  did  not 
catalogue  the  mss.  because  he  could  not,  we  may  remember 
that  he  was  no  longer  young  when  he  was  first  appointed, 
that  the  books  were  immediately  removed  from  Fontaine- 
bleau to  narrow  rooms,  that  they  were  shifted  and  shifted 
again,  that  these  years  were  years  of  trouble  and  confusion, 
especially  in  the  capital,  and  that  the  keeper  received  a 
mere  pittance  for  his  services.  Casaubon,  himself  acting 
librarian  for  six  years,  and  titular  for  more,  does  not  seem 
to  have  attempted  a  catalogue,  though  he  complained  much 
before  he  succeeded  to  the  office  of  the  imperfections  of 
that  which  existed. 

The  expectation  of  the  learned  as  to  the  find  which  awaited 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1 5io.  183 

them  was  unlimited.  The  demand  came  not  from  France, 
sunk  in  reUgious  and  political  party,  but  from  foreign 
countries.  Lying  in  the  heart  of  the  colleges  and 
convents  of  Paris,  the  classical  treasures  were  unheeded 
by,  and  were  unintelligible  to,  their  occupants.  Federic 
Morel,  regius  professor,  alone  continued  to  issue  from 
his  press  a  series  of  greek  tractates  transcribed  or  edited 
from  the  mss,  far  too  rapidly  to  be  done  with  any  care. 
It  was  from  Leyden  and  from  Germany  that  the  requisi- 
tions poured  in.  Scaliger,  of  course,  was  among  the  most 
urgent.  But  Scaliger  now,  aet.  64,  was  weighed  down  by 
his  vast  work — the  Eusebius — and  asked  only  for  what 
immediately  bore  upon  the  task  which  he  sometimes 
feared  he  should  not  live  to  complete.  One  of  Casaubon's 
first  cares  was  to  send  off  to  Leyden  some  excerpta  of  a 
greek  chronologer  *,  which  he  had  discovered,  and 
thought  might  be  of  use.  Scaliger  immediately  recognised 
portions  of  book  i.  of  Eusebius'  Chronicon,  and  considered 
it  the  most  valuable  contribution  which  had  been  made 
to  his  Thesaurus  temporum---^ '  the  Minerva  of  Phidias 
among  the  other  sculptures.'  Besides  Scaliger  he  supplied 
Heinsius  at  Leyden,  Gruter  and  Freher  at  Heidelberg, 
Hoeschel  at  Augsburg,  and  Savile  at  Eton  with  materials 
or  collations  for  their  publications.  He  complains  much 
of  the  consumption  of  time  in  these  friendly  offices, 
though  he  now  began  to  have  the  important  assistance  of 
Charles  Labbe.  Labbe  was  one  of  the  troop  of  young 
scholars  formed  in  the  school  of  Scaliger,  who,  while 
refusing  the  professor's  chair,  sowed  the  seeds  of  learning 
wherever  he  came  in  contact  with  a  capable  mind.  Labbe 
— 2  docte  et  infatigable— transcribed  for  his  master,  in  a 
greek  hand  of  such  exquisite  neatness  that  it  surpasses,  in 


*  See  note  D  in  Appendix. 

^  Seal.  epp.  p.  292  :  '  Fragmentum  illud  twv  araSioviKoiv,  quod  nobis  liberalitas 
tua  impertivit,  est  ut  Minerva  Phidise  in  nostro  opere.' 
^  Scaligerana  2°.  p.  134. 


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1 84  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

this  respect,  that  of  the  master  himself,  while  Casaubon 
writes  a  straggling  greek  ^,  which  can  have  given  him  no 
satisfaction  in  the  transcriber's  weary  task. 

But  of  this  work  he  did  little.  While  Scaliger  imposed 
upon  himself  the  task  of  writing  out  whole  books — 
2 '  books  which  are  only  lent  me  for  a  short  time,  syriac, 
arabic,  hebrew,'  and  that  at  65,  when  the  'labour  will 
profit  only  those  who  shall  possess  my  Hbrary  after  me,' 
Casaubon,  though  he  noted  much,  copied  little.  The 
longest  excerpt  remaining  among  his  papers  is  a 
portion  of  Leo's  Tactica,  transcribed  in  the  country  in  the 
vintage  season  of  1609.  The  use  he  made  of  the  library 
was  one,  which  no  librarian  ought  to  make — it  was  to  read 
the  books.  Casaubon,  indeed,  was  what  he  was  by  his  in- 
cessant reading,  seconded  by  a  capacious  memory.  Early 
in  life  he  had  made  his  own  all  the  classical  remains 
accessible  in  print.  He  had  pined  in  the  south  because 
he  could  not  get  books,  though  he  borrowed  from  all  his 
friends  who  had  them.  Exhaustive  reading  of  the  greek  and 
latin  writers  was  what  he  proposed  to  himself.  When  he 
first  came  to  Paris,  not  knowing  how  short  his  stay  might 
prove,  he  made  the  resolve  to  read  those  books  which  he 
could  not  hope  to  get  elsewhere  ^.  His  written  memoranda 
as  well  as  his  pubHshed  notes  bear  witness  to  the  eager- 
ness with  which  he  devoured  the  royal  mss  *. 

It  will  not  therefore  surprise  us  to  find  that  he  did 
nothing  for  arranging  or  cataloguing,  hardly  anything  for 
publishing  new  texts.  The  librarian  who  reads  is  lost. 
There  was  now  at  his  disposal  a  rich  mine  of  greek 
anecdota.  But  he  left  the  glory  of  communicating  these  to 
the  world  to  Meursius  and  Morel.  His  own  pleasure  was 
to  read  them ;  who  liked  might  print  them.     For  he  has 

'  Seal.  2".  p.  45  :  '  II  a  une  trts  mauvaise  lettre  grecque.' 

^  Seal.  Ep.  p.  299.  '  Ephem.  p.  340. 

'  Ephem.  p.  339 :  '  Libris  nostris  renunciamus,  solis  illis  operam  daturi,  quos 

alibi  nancisei  non  posseraus,  hie  possumus  segre  quidem,  sed  tamen  possumus. 

Hujus  generis  sunt  libri  regise  bibliothecae.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  185 

no  jealousy,  none  of  that  desire  of  keeping  things  for 
himself  which  used  to  govern  all  libraries,  and  still  lingers, 
if  report  be  true,  about  the  Vatican.  When  any  corre- 
spondent asked  for  any  book,  he  tried  to  find  it ;  but  he 
never  made  any  thorough  and  complete  investigation,  once 
for  all,  of  what  was  there,  much  less  a  catalogue.  In  1608 
Hoeschel  applied  to  him  for  mss.  of  Arrianus.  Though 
Casaubon  had  then  been  nearly  four  years  in  full  posses- 
sion of  the  library,  he  did  not  know  if  there  were  any  mss. 
of  Arrianus,  but  would  look^.  He  found,  on  searching,  at 
least  two.  As  late  as  1607,  in  reply  to  Scaliger's  urgent 
entreaty  for  any  fragments  of  a  chronological  nature,  he 
says  he  will  have  a  good  search  through  all  the  cases.  He 
began  to  have  access  to  the  books,  though  restricted 
access,  in  1599.  From  1605  to  October  1610,  the  library 
was  wholly  at  his  disposal,  yet  the  only  anecdotum  he  pub- 
lishes is  .^neas  Tacticus  ^.  The  selection  of  this  author 
was  not  determined  by  the  value  of  the  royal  library  codex. 
What  he  found  there  was  only  a  modern  sixteenth  century 
transcript  by  Vergecio,  and  Casaubon  had  in  his  own  hands 
a  much  older  ms,  which  had  been  lent  him  by  Bongars. 

A  large  part  of  these  years  was  given  to  his  edition  of 
Polybius.  This  again  was  a  choice  not  guided  by  the 
merit  of  the  royal  mss.  It  was  an  old  design  of  Casaubon 
to  edit  Polybius,  an  intention  which  he  had  announced  as 
far  back  as  1595,  and  indeed  had  publicly  pledged  himself 
to  in  the  first  Suetonius  ^.  Here  again  he  only  used  from 
the  royal  collection  a  modern  ms  *,  again  one  of  Vergecio's 
copies,  and  indeed  nothing  more  than  a  transcript,  made 
in  1547,  from  the  printed  text  of  Opsopceus'  edition, 
though  Casaubon  did  not  know  this.  This  neglect  of 
good  things  would  be  more  amazing  if  it  were  the  fact  that 


'  Ep.  607. 

'■'  Commentarius  tacticus  et  obsidionalis,  in  the  Polybius  of  1609.     It  is  the 
Ed.  Pr.  of  the  text  of  .^neas. 

•'  Sueton.  Tib.  cap.  65,  and  ded.  *  Cod.  reg.  1649. 


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l86  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect-, 

cod.  reg.  1648  (A.  Schweigh.)  was  actually  among  Cathe- 
rine's books,  and  that  Casaubon  had  not  found  it  out. 

Besides  his  Polybius,  and  ^neas  Tacticus,  he  prints 
during  this  period  two  inedited  pieces,  but  neither  of  them 
from  royal  mss.  One  was  the  '  Inscriptio  Herodis,'  which 
he  printed  from  a  copy  sent  from  Rome  to  Gillot  by 
Christophe  Du  Puy;  the  other  was  an  epistle  of  Gre- 
gorius  of  Nyssa  from  a  ms.  of  Nicolas  le  Fevre.  All  this 
while  he  had  untold  treasures  under  his  hand,  e.  g.  the 
'  De  administrando  imperio '  of  Constantinus  Porphyroge- 
neta,  which  he  names  himself  as  worthy  of  publication  by 
royal  command  ^.  He  himself  was  content  to  have  read  it. 
He  describes  his  own  feehngs  among  the  mss.  when  he 
writes  to  Saumaise,  who  was  revelling  in  the  treasures  of 
the  Palatine,  yet  unplundered,  that  ^ '  he  must  be  suffering 
the  torment  of  Tantalus,  not  being  able  to  read  all  the  books 
at  once.' 

When  Casaubon  succeeded  to  the  care  of  the  library 
he  was  only  forty-six.  Though  premature  infirmity  had 
already  begun  to  undermine  his  strength,  he  had  still  an 
enormous  appetite  for  reading,  but  his  taste  was  gradually 
taking  a  direction  which  was  leading  him  away  from  greek. 
He  did  not  conceive  that  he  was  renouncing  old  studies  to 
take  up  with  new.  He  continued  to  labour  at  Polybius, 
and  expended  much  time  and  research  on  his  edition.  But 
his  leisure  hours,  as  he  calls  them,  were  given  to  contro- 
versial reading,  and  his  interests  were  passing  over,  in 
spite  of  himself,  to  this,  the  fashionable,  topic. 

It  has  been  already  noticed  that  Casaubon  suffered,  all 
his  life,  from  the  disease  of  double-mindedness.  He  was 
a  man  of  a  divided  interest— dyJ/p  St'i/fvxoj.  While  he  was 
reading  classics,  he  was  always  wishing  to  be  reading  the 
fathers.     While  editing  Athenteus  he  was  longing  to  have 

'  Prsef.  in  Polyb. 

'^  Ep.  543  :  '  Videor  mihi  videre  te  in  mediis  aquis  Tantalo  similem ;  neque 
enim  potes  omnibus  perfrui  Palatinas  bibliothecae  divitiis.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  187 

done  with  it,   that   he  might  give  himself  to   christian 
antiquity.    The  literary  gossips  have  put  upon  this  fact  the 
vulgar  interpretation,  that  he  was  fluctuating  in  his  choice 
between  the  rival  churches.     The  truth  is,  he  was  staying 
himself  in  a  learned  equilibrium  between  opposite  fanati- 
cisms— the  biblical  and  the  ecclesiastical.     In  order  to  hold 
his  own  in  the  midst  of  the  fray,  he  was  compelled  to 
bestow  no  little  attention  on  the  facts  involved.     He  had 
to  articulate  the  argument,  and,  against  such  an  adversary 
as  Du  Perron,  to  defend  it  by  citation  from  the  authorita- 
tive books.     Thus  the  kind  of  reading  which  he  secretly 
liked  was  stimulated  by  an  external  necessity,  while  the 
study  of  the  classics  had  to  be  sustained  in  the  face  of  total 
neglect  on  the  part  of  the  pubhc^.     The  inward  strife  of 
conflicting  tastes  is  common  to  all  gifted  natures  in  youth. 
But  it  is  usually  composed  long  before  mid-age  by  a  de- 
Hberate  decision,  which  selects  for  good  one  goal.     That 
youthful  state  of  mind  which  Donne  ^  describes  himself  as 
suffering  from,    '  an   hydroptique   immoderate   desire    of 
humane  learning  and  languages,'  either  dies  out,  or  takes 
some  specific  direction,  before  forty.     The  circumstances 
into  which  Casaubon  was  thrown  by  his  position  in  Paris 
maintained  a  life-long  distraction  between  two  tendencies. 
We  have  seen  the  assault  upon  his  religious  convictions 
commence  with  his  arrival  in  Paris  in  1599.     When  it  was 
found  that  the  citadel  was  not  carried  by  a  coup  de  main,  it 
seemed  at  first  that  the  attacking  party  retired  in  disgust. 
The  king  was  angry,  and  looked  coldly  upon  him.     Why 
did  not  Casaubon  fulfil  the  condition  on  which  he  had 
been  brought  from  Montpellier  ?    They  had  made  so  sure 
of  his  conversion  that  they  told  the  duchesse  de  Bar,  the 
king's  sister,  that  it  was  quite  settled.    This  Casaubon 
contradicted  in  form,  obtaining  an  audience  from  the  high 

'  '  Liters  ut  aliis  etiara  locis  animam  agunt :  unus  eas  Casaubonus  sustinel 
apud  nos,  quas  ubique  Jesuitee  impugnant.'  Bongars  to  Kirchmann,  Frankfort, 
29  April,  1606.  ''  Donne,  Letters,  p.  51 

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1 88  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

lady  for  the  purpose^.  This  was  too  bad,  not  only  to 
persist  himself,  but  to  spoil  the  game  with  Madame. 
Casaubon's  coming  over  would  bring  many  others  with 
him ;  but  he  could  not  be  allowed  to  go  about  con- 
firming other  heretics  in  their  obstinacy.  He  must  be 
dismissed  in  disgrace.  Casaubon  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  so  it  must  be.  Suddenly  the  policy  of  the  je.suits 
altered.  They  are  all  smiles  and  blandishments.  Casau- 
bon ^  writes  to  Scaliger  in  October,  1604  : — 

'  I  must  now  tell  you  that  things  are  changed  with  me 
here ;  I,  who  was  an  object  of  hate  to  the  loyolites  for  my 
steadiness  in  the  profession  of  pure  religion,  am  now 
become  their  dearest  friend.  Whether  I  am  in  town,  or 
retired  into  the  country,  I  must  be  among  them,  and 
converse  with  them.  Lately  I  had  a  visit  from  Gonter, 
with  I  know  not  how  many  bishops  ;  next  day,  when  I 
was  deep  in  my  books,  comes  Fronto  le  Due.  .  .  .  He  had 
no  sooner  saluted  me,  than  he  began  to  tell  me  he  was  sent 
by  the  king  with  orders  to  press  it  upon  me,  as  a  thing 
which  the  king  had  very  much  at  heart.  I  made  them  all 
the  same  answer,  to  the  effect,  viz.  That  truth  had  always 
been  my  one  aim ;  that  I  would  always  be  ready  to 
consider  and  weigh  all  real  arguments  which  could  be 
advanced,  but  that  promises  of  favour  from  my  prince 
would  have  no  weight  whatever  in  such  a  matter.  I  ex- 
pressed my  surprise  that  after  the  emphatic  proofs  I  had 
already  given  of  my  firmness  in  my  present  convictions, 
any  further  attempt  should  be  made  upon  me.' 

The  explanation  of  this  change  of  tactic  was  that  the 
Jesuits  had  seen  that  the  vulgar  motives  of  royal  favour, 
and  pension,  which  sufficed  in  so  many  cases,  would  not 
succeed  with  Casaubon.  He  was  ready,  if  need  were,  to 
give  up  his  place  and  go  into  exile.     He  not  only  declared 

'  Ephem.  p.  378  :  '  Venimus  ad  rijv  Zianoivav,  et  sine  fuco  et  fallaciis  quid 
de  recta  fide     .     .     .    judicaremus,  prolixe  exposuimus.' 
^  Ep.  416 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610.  189 

this,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  he  was  man  enough  to  do  it. 
But  the  wily  emissaries  of  Rome,  who  have  always  piqued 
themselves  upon  their  knowledge  of  men,  saw,  or  thought 
they  saw,  that  the  case  was  not  hopeless  for  all  that. 
There  was  a  side  of  Casaubon  on  which  he  was  assailable. 
This  was  his  learning.  He  knew  too  much  to  go  in  for  all 
the  untenable  notions  of  his  own  church  and  friends.  On 
a  rude  unlettered  pastor,  who  knew  nothing  but  his  french 
bible  and  Calvin's  Institutes,  there  was  no  prize.  But  a 
learned  man,  who  appealed  to  antiquity,  who  admitted  the 
fathers  and-  councils  as  authority,  must  be  to  be  had. 
Honestly  convinced  that  fathers  and  councils  were  on 
their  side,  the  Jesuits  conceived  that  they  had  but  to  get 
him  into  controversy,  to  show  him  that  the  fact  was  so,  in 
order  to  convince  him  of  his  error,  and  bring  him  to 
renounce  it.     He  himself  had  said  he  would  do  so. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  Casaubon  was  drawn  into 
controversy,  and  through  controversy  to  interest,  and 
further  reading  on  the  controverted  points.  The  manage- 
ment of  the  business,  indeed,  passed  out  of  the  immediate 
hands  of  the  Jesuits.  The  most  learned  man  they  had  at 
the  moment  available  was  Fronto  le  Due.  But  Fronto, 
though  translator  and  editor  of  greek  fathers,  and  notably 
of  Chrysostom,  had  not  strength  enough  to  cope  with 
Casaubon.  Du  Perron  was  obliged  to  be  called  in.  It 
was  impossible  for  Casaubon  to  decline  frequent  en- 
counters with  'the  archsophist.'  The  cardinal,  as  grand 
aumonier,  had  a  general  superintendence  over  the  publi- 
cation of  theological  books.  Casaubon's  Hbrary  duties 
brought  him  into  constant  intercourse  with  him\     Not- 

'  I  have  not  been  able  to  ascertain  what  was  the  nature  of  the  authority 
which  cardinal  Du  Perron  exercised  over  the  library.  The  editor  of  the  splendid 
History,  too  splendid  for  use,  issued  from  the  Imprimerie  imperiale,  knows  no- 
thing of  it.  But  it  is  clear  from  Casaubon's  correspondence,  that,  in  some  way, 
Du  Perron  was  his  ofBcial  superior.  See  Cas.  epp.  624,  652.  On  the  other 
hand  in  Ephem.  p.  666,  he  says  on  one  occasion  when  the  cardinal  sent  for 
him,  that  it  was  '  nomine  regis.'  [The  '  splendid  history  '  here  referred  to  is 
probably  F.  A.  Duprat's  Histoire  de  f  Imprimerie  Imperiale  de  France.'] 

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190  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

withstanding  his  many  defeats  and  disappointments,  these 
reunions  were  used  unceasingly  by  Du  Perron  for  contro- 
versy,— by  the  king's  command,  he  said.  Scahger  thought 
it  1  not  unhkely  that  this  was  true,  looking  at  Casaubon's 
great  reputation,  and  Henri's  eager  desire  to  please  the 
pope.  '  He  thinks  if  he  could  only  vanquish  you,  and 
suspend  the  spoils  of  your  firmness  on  the  fisherman's 
doors,  that  it  would  greatly  increase  his  credit  among  his 
transtiberine  friends.' 

A  letter  of  Casaubon,  written  in  1604,  gives  us  an  insight 
into  the  trouble  occasioned  him  by  the  state  of  siege  in 
which  he  was  compelled  to  live  ^ : — 

'  If  I  had  attached  the  importance  to  these  disputations 
which  I  find  others  do,  I  would  have  taken  care  that  you 
should  have  heard  from  myself  what  took  place  on  the 
occasion.  Being  invited  lately  to  breakfast  by  cardinal 
Du  Perron,  he  started  a  desultory  discussion  on  religious 
subjects.  I  own  I  was  surprised  at  this,  for  for  some  j^ears 
past  he  has  not  opened  his  mouth  to  me  on  these  matters 
at  all,  and  I  perceived  that  it  was  a  plot  directed  against 
my  simplicity,  and  originating  with  some  other  persons 
who  were  at  table.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  was  in  for 
what  became  a  very  lively  controversy.  And  I  was  led  to 
suspect  that  many  of  the  company,  who  were  not  in  the 
secret,  supposed  this  to  be  one  of  those  farcical  disputations 
which  they  get  up,  and  was  concerted  with  me,  to  give  a 
colour  to  my  conversion.    And  it  so  fell  out,  that  immedi- 

'  Seal.  epp.  p.  271  :  '  Non  parvam  laudem  putat  apud  transtiberinos  fore,  si 
spolium  constantiae  vestrse  ad  illos  referat,  quod  e  valvis  piscatoris  aliquando 
pendeat.' 

^  Ep.  420.  This  interesting  letter  was  printed  by  Gronovius,  in  1638,  as  ad- 
dressed to  an  anonymous  correspondent,  N.  N.  Almeloveen,  in  reprinting  it, 
1709,  appended  to  it  a  note  of  Colomies,  in  which  it  is  conjectured  that  the 
correspondent  was  Paul  Petau.  The  cohjecture  is  wrong.  The  letter  was 
really  addressed  to  de  Thou,  and  the  original  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  ms. 
volume  of  Casaubon's  letters  to  de  Thou,  Bibl.  nat.  coll.  Dupuy,  708.  The  dis- 
closure of  the  desperate  attempts  to  get  over  Casaubon,  and  their  failure,  was 
still  in  1638  a  matter  sufiBciently  delicate  to  make  it  desirable  to  suppress  the 
name  of  de  Thou,  as  Casaubon's  confidant  on  the  subject. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610.  191 

ately  the  party  broke  up,  the  rumour  was  bruited  about 
the  town  that  I  had  given  in,  and  that  my  conversion  was 
now  imminent.  At  first  I  tried  to  laugh  it  off.  And, 
indeed,  I  cannot  but  think  it  ridiculous  to  make  a  serious 
matter  out  of  one's  conversation  at  table.  But,  finding 
that  my  character  was  at  stake,  I  was  obliged  to  write  to 
the  cardinal  a  letter  of  expostulation,  of  which  letter  I 
enclose  you  a  copy,  reserving  further  particulars  for  our 
next  meeting.' 

Compelled  thus  to  encounter  an  adversary  whose  learn- 
ing he  respected  ^,  and  whose  argumentative  dexterity 
embarrassed  him,  it  was  impossible  for  Casaubon  not  to 
give  some  time  to  theological  reading.  It  grew  upon  him 
as  the  struggle  intensified,  and  came  to  occupy  more  and 
more  of  his  thoughts.  He  had  always  been  longing  for 
the  time  when  he  might  steep  himself  in  christian  antiquity, 
and  now  the  subject  was  forced  upon  him.  ^  'O  that  some 
man  would  arise,'  he  cries  in  1606  ,'who  would  revive  the 
study  of  true  ecclesiastical  archaeology ! '  There  was  store 
of  patristic  greek  in  the  royal  library,  which  Casaubon 
could  have  approached,  as  no  one  has  yet  approached  it, 
with  a  complete  reading  of  pagan  antiquity.  Here  was 
his  true  occupation,  one  in  which  he  might  have  satisfied 
at  once  both  of  the  instincts  which  divided  him.  Instead 
of  this,  he  was  driven  to  Polybius,  and  to  the  transcription 
of  the  military  writers,  an  ahen  subject,  to  which  he  could 
bring  but  a  factitious  interest.  From  his  own  peculiar 
field  he  was  excluded  by  the  theologians,  who  would  not 


1  Casaubon  always  speaks  with  respect  of  Du  Perron's  reading,  and  with 
something  like  awe  of  his  controversial  ability.  The  Italian  biographer  of  Fra 
Paolo,  Engl,  transl.  p.  6i,  says  of  the  cardinal,  '  truly  that  elevated  spirit  of  his 
had  an  argute  manner  of  disputing  and  extremely  provocative,'  a  description 
identical  with  Casaubon's,  Ep.  214  :  t^s  aotpiaTiKrjs  refOpiias  Tpiffwv.  Thus  he 
was  more  powerful  as  a  disputant  than  as  a  writer,  yet  his  controversial  books 
are  singled  out  by  Jer.  Taylor,  Dissuasive,  6.  486,  as  '  the  more  learned  answers 
of  Bellarmine  and  Perron,'  in  contrast  to  '  the  more  weak  answers  offered.' 

'  Ep.  518. 


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192  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

allow  a  heretic  to  handle  the  fathers  '.  His  own  Chrysos- 
tom,  of  whom  there  were  sixty  mss.  in  the  royal  library,  was 
forbidden  to  Casaubon,  and  reserved  for  Fronto  le  Due. 

For  Casaubon's  efforts  were  not  wholly  in  vain.  It  would 
not  do  to  have  this  heretic  librarian  going  about  saying, 
that  the  king's  collection  was  full  of  most  valuable  greek 
MSS.  of  the  fathers,  that  he  was  desirous  to  print  them,  but 
that  the  clergy  would  not  let  him.  What  made  it  worse  was 
that  he  was  the  one  man  most  competent  in  France — in 
the  world — for  the  work.  Something  must  be  done. 
Would  the  king  not  find  the  funds  necessary  for  an  under- 
taking which  would  be  so  glorious  for  his  reign  ?  Ask 
Sully,  who  grudged  Casaubon's  keep  already,  thought 
'  he  cost  the  king  too  much,'  if  he  would  pay  for  printing 
the  fathers  ?  Would  he  not  reply  by  asking,  '  Why  don't 
you  do  it  yourselves  out  of  your  rich  benefices,  you 
bishops  and  abbots?  Such  a  public-spirited  act  would 
shed  great  lustre  on  the  church ! '  If  the  mass  of 
the  dignified  clergy  were  little  likely  to  listen  to  such  a 
suggestion,  there  was  a  small  minority  among  the  bishops 
possessed  of  sufficient  culture  to  think  it  not  quite  absurd. 
In  an  assembly  which  they  held  in  Paris  in  1606,  it  was 
suggested  that  as  the  estate  of  the  clergy  had  just  received 
a  remission  of  their  tenths  from  the  crown,  to  the  amount 
of  400,000  crowns,  a  portion  of  this  sum  might  be  devoted 
to  printing  the  fathers.  No  more,  however,  could  be 
extracted  than  2000  crowns,  to  which,  by  cardinal  Du 
Perron's  influence,  was  afterwards  added  another  thou- 
sand. Fortified  with  this  small  subvention  a  bookseller, 
CI.  Morel,  engaged  to  bring  out  the  works  of  Chrysostom. 
As  the  Eton  Chrysostom  (1612)  cost  sir  H.  Savile  ^8000 
sterling  to  produce,  it  is  clear  that  Morel  must  have  rehed 
on  the  sale  to  the  public  to  repay  his  expenses. 

'  Ep.  509  :  '  Editionem  patrum  hie  curare  non  possum,  quia  non  permittitur 
homini  hseretico  id  genus  librorum  attingere,  multo  minus  quicquam  adjicere 
mearum  observationum.'     Cf.  ep.  647. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  193 

But  though  Casaubon  might  not  use  the  mss.  of  the 
royal  library,  he  might  use  others,  and  nothing  could 
interfere  with  his  printing  in  a  foreign  country.  His 
earliest  essay  in  patristic  criticism  he  thus  speaks  of  in 
1596,  in  writing  to  Bongars,  ^ '  I  had  begun  lately  to  put 
together  in  a  book,  "  Observations  on  the  ecclesiastical 
writers ; "  but  I  afterwards  forebore ;  well  enough, 
methinks,  is  soon  enough.'  It  was  not  till  1605  that  he 
stole  into  the  world,  unobtrusively,  almost  timidly,  with  a 
first  essay  in  this  forbidden  walk  His  friend  Hoeschel 
was  publishing  at  Augsburg  Origan  against  Celsus,  a 
greek  text  then  unprinted,  setting  herein,  with  far  inferior 
resources,  an  example  of  what  might  have  been  done  in 
Paris.  The  treatise  was  to  be  accompanied  by  the  eloge 
of  Gregorius  of  Neocsesareia  on  Origen,  which  had  been 
once  before  printed,  in  a  very  bad  state,  in  1587.  The 
text  of  this  last  piece  Hoeschel  communicated  to  Casaubon, 
who  sent  back  a  few  pages  of  emendations.  Hoeschel, 
glad  to  adorn  his  book  with  Casaubon's  name,  printed 
these  notes  along  with  Casaubon's  letter  at  the  end  of 
his  volume.  Being  purely  critical,  they  excited  no 
attention  in  Paris,  and  were  so  little  known  at  all,  that 
Meric  even  ^  had  never  seen  them  *. 

In  the  next  year,  1606,  grown  more  bold,  he  ventured  to 
print  in  Paris,  and  with  his  name,  a  little  volume  contain- 
ing an  inedited  epistle  of  Gregorius  of  Nyssa,  with  a 
preface  and  notes.  It  was  published  by  his  cousin  and 
friend  Robert  Estienne,  in  partnership  with  the  heirs  of 
Patisson.  It  attracted  some  attention,  as  having  the  name 
of  Casaubon  on  the  title.  Lestoile  mentions  it  ^  as  '  bien 
digne  d'estre  recueilliee,'  and  it  was  cheap  enough,  being 
sold,  bound  in  parchment,  for  a  quarter  of  a  crown.  But 
if  Lestoile,  or  the  public,  expected  a  theological  manifesto, 

'  Ep.  433.  °  Pietas,  p.  98.  *  See  note  D  in  Appendix. 

'  Registre-journal,  p.  402. 

O 

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'94 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


they  were  disappointed.  The  notes  are  not  theological,  but 
illustrative  and  interpretative  only.  The  different  usage  of 
the  same  word  by  the  ecclesiastical,  and  by  the  classical 
writers,  is  often  richly  exemphfied.  Yet  there  are  allusions 
which  show  how  full  the  editor's  mind  was  of  the  present. 
There  is  an  oblique  glance,  p.  60,  at  the  '  inventiunculae 
humanse  mentis'  on  the  subject  of  pilgrimage.  And  the 
preface  is  altogether  a  concealed  allusion  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  day,  for  it  is  a  recommendation  to  concord 
among  Christians.  In  the  sensitive  state  of  the  pubHc 
•mind  in  Paris,  to  insinuate  that  the  huguenots  were 
Christians  was  a  spark  on  gunpowder.  Casaubon  was 
admonished,  and  given  to  understand  that  his  position  as 
librarian  and  king's  pensioner  must  not  be  used  for  the 
subversion  of  the  catholic  faith.  In  his  disappointment  he 
wrote  to  Vertunien^  that  'he  should  never  be  at  rest  till 
he  found  himself  in  a  free  country,  where  he  might  have 
liberty  to  reply  to  the  Jesuits.'  Casaubon  had  only  himself 
to  blame,  for  having  taken  the  opportunity  of  a  greek  book 
to  make  an  edifying  application. 

If  he  might  not  write  as  a  protestant,  there  was  another 
controversy  on  foot,  in  which  he  thought  the  'king's 
librarian '  might  without  rebuke  take  up  a  pen.  The  old 
debate  between  the  gallican  and  ultramontane  parties, 
indigenous  to  french  soil,  had  just  now  sprung  up  again 
into  the  question  of  the  day,  owing  to  the  struggle  going 
on  between  Pius  v.  and  the  republic  of  Venice.  The 
gallican  party  in  Paris  sympathised  keenly  with  the 
republic  in  its  courageous  resistance,  and  were  desirous 
of  having  an  argument  on  the  principle  drawn  for 
.circulation  in  France.  Casaubon  had,  independently, 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  read  with  keen  interest  the 
books  and  pamphlets  which  inundated  the  press  in  these 

'  Ep.  franf.  p.  524 :  '  Mondict  sieur  Casaubon  m'a  mand6  qu'il  n'auroit  jamais 
repos  en  son  ame  qu'il  ne  se  veit  en  lieu  libre  pour  respondre  aux  calomnies  et 
impostures  des  Jesuistes.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  195 

years.  He  had  been^  especially  attracted  by  those  of  Fra  \ 
Paolo,  the  Servite,  in  which  he  recognised  the  flavour  of 
that  ecclesiastical  science,  which  was  his  own  unattain-  \ 
able  ideal.  The  distance  between  the  real  learning  of 
Casaubon,  and  the  disputative  energy  of  Du  Perron  may 
be  measured  by  their  respective  judgments  on  Fra  Paolo. 
'  I  met  Fra  Paolo  at  Venice,'  said  the  cardinal  ^,  '  I  saw 
nothing  eminent  about  him ;  he  has  good  judgment  and 
good  sense,  but  no  great  knowledge! 

Casaubon  was  easily  prevailed  upon  to  undertake  the  j 
subject,  as  that  which  he  would  have  preferred  was  closed 
to  him.  But  as  a  protestant  name  would  have  damaged 
the  effect  of  the  book,  it  was  to  be  anonymous,  after  the 
precedent  of  Ranchin's  '  Review  of  the  Council  of  Trent.' 
Casaubon  himself  is  careful  not  to  tell  his  correspondents 
what  it  is  on  which  he  is  engaged.  But  it  could  not  be 
kept  altogether  secret.  Early  sheets  were  procured  by 
the  nuncio  during  the  progress  of  the  work,  and  Fra  Paolo 
wrote  ^  that  it  was  eagerly  expected  in  Venice.  Casaubon  . 
threw  himself  into  the  fray  with  zeal.  The  pamphlet  was  ' 
becoming  a  book,  and  the  sheets  were  printed  off  as  fast 
as  they  were  written.  Fifteen  sheets  were  already  thrown 
off  when  the  nuncio  interfered,  and  demanded  the 
suppression  of  the  book.  He  had  before  obtained  an 
interdict  to  stop  the  reprint  of  Gerson,  '  De  potestate 
ecclesiastica,'  and  he  had  no  difficulty  in  now  procuring  an 
inhibition  of  Casaubon's  book  *-  The  king  was  very  angry. 


'  Ep.  542.  Cas.  to  Scaliger  :  '  Vidistine,  obsecro,  quae  Venetiis  prodiere  scripta 
a  paucis  mensibus?  prsesertim  magni  illius  Pauli  Veneti  .  .  .  ego  cum  ilia 
lego,  spe  nescio  qua  ducor,  futurum  illic  aliquando  et  Uteris  sacris,  et  meliori 
literaturae  locum.' 

2  Perroniana,  p.  259.  '  Burney  Mss.  365.  p.  285. 

*  The  suggestion  that  Casaubon  should  be  engaged  to  write  came  originally 
from  Venice.  Camdeni  Epp.  ep.  65.  Becher  to  Camden,  June  4,  1607  :  '  Mon- 
sieur Casaubon  hath  two  pieces  coming  forth,  but  neither  of  them  yet  finished, 
Polybius,  and  another,  De  libertate  ecclesiastica,  at  the  instance  of  the  Venetian 
ambassador ;  and  although  their  difference  be  compounded,  yet  it  goeth  forward, 
and  there  is  great  expectation  of  it.'     Cf.  Cas.  ep.  882.     Burney  mss.  363.  p.  93. 

O  a 
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196  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

'  grandement  indigne,'  and  Casaubon  was  fain  to  write  a 
letter  to  Villeroy  to  excuse  himself.  He  does  this  as  well 
as  he  can^,  but  cannot  deny  the  fact  that  he  has  been 
writing  '  against  the  pope.'  The  government  of  Henri  ^, 
which  was  at  this  period  wholly  ultramontane,  seconded 
the  nuncio.  The  '  De  libertate  ecclesiastica  ^ '  remained 
not  only  unprinted,  but  unwritten.  Some  copies,  however, 
of  the  printed  sheets  had  got  abroad,  and  from  one 
of  these  Melchior  Goldast  reprinted  the  fragment  in 
Germany,  1612,  and,  by  a  curious  coincidence,  in  the 
same  collection  of  tracts  which  contained  Gerson  '  De 
potestate.' 

Casaubon  had  lost  much  precious  time  over  an  abortive 
scheme ;  but  his  eagerness  for  the  fray  was  not  abated. 
He  wanted  to  write  a  review  of  Baronius'  '  Annals.' 
This,  where  the  argument  was  not  political,  where  the 
discussion  turned  entirely  on  the  interpretation  of  ancient 
authors,  was  Casaubon's  proper  territory.  Here  he  might 
expatiate  in  the  field  of  ecclesiastical  archaeology  which  he 
was  sighing  to  enter.  But  he  could  not  do  it,  even  in  his 
own  moderate  style,  without  permission.  He  applied  for 
this  permission  and  it  was  refused;  gently  indeed,  but 
seriously;  'the  time  was  not  yet  come.'  The  strictest 
orders  had  been  issued  in  Italy*  that  no  one  should  be 
allowed  '  to  write  against  Baronius ; '  an  order,  as  Fra 
Paolo  remarks,  '  which  shows  there  was  a  good  deal  to  be 
said.*    Father  Paul  would  have  answered  Baronius  himself, 


'  Ep.  557. 

^  Michelet,  vol.  5.  p.  463,  thinks  that  Henri  iv.  desired  to  act  in  favour  of  the 
protestants  as  early  as  1600.  If  this  was  so,  it  could  only  have  been  a  momen- 
tary impulse.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  was  not  till  the  dispute  between  Venice 
and  the  see  of  Rome  that  a  Galilean  party  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  France, 
and  that  Henri  iv.  began  to  lean  towards  it. 

'  The  fragment  De  libertate  is  printed  in  Goldasti  Monarchia  S.  Romani 
imperii,  Hanov.  i6ia.  vol.  1.  pp.  674-716  [and  again  in  Almeloveen's  edition  of 
Casaubon's  Epistolae,  vol.  ii.  p.  167.] 

'  Burney  mss.  365.  p.  285,  Fra  Paolo  to  Cas. :  ' .  .  .  ne  quid  vel  minimum 
contra  Baronium  scribatur,  vel  alibi  scriptum  in  Italiam  importetur.' 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-16TO.  197 

had  he  been  permitted,  but  Venice  soon  made  up  its  quarrel 
with  Rome,  and  the  opportunity  was  past.  France  was 
equally  under  Roman  influence,  and  Casaubon  must  defer 
his  criticism  of  Baronius  to  a  later  day,  and  a  freer 
country. 

Thus  precluded  from  the  topic  in  which  his  interests 
were  most  engaged,  Casaubon  was  compelled  to  fall 
back  upon  the  classics.  If  we  must  regret  that  Casaubon 
laid  out  some  of  his  best  years  upon  Polybius,  we  must 
remember  that  he  was  driven  upon  it,  by  being  debarred 
from  the  better  work  he  would  have  done,  but  might  not. 

In  taking  up  Polybius,  he  took  up  an  old  thread.  Years 
ago,  in  1595,  he  had  pledged  himself  to  an  edition,  and  the 
author  was  not  unsuitable  to  his  turn  of  mind.  Notwith- 
standing his  admiration  of  Theocritus,  he  was  destitute, 
if  ever  mortal  was,  of  poetic  feeling.  The  erotic  and 
wanton  greek  muse  offended  his  huguenot  asceticism. 
He  had  no  metrical  skill.  He  had  as  little  taste  for 
philosophy  as  for  poetry.  In  working  upon  Athenaeus, 
though  he  had  expatiated  on  the  antiquarianism,  he  had 
been  wearied  with  the  frivolity  of  the  dilettante  litterateur. 
The  level  good  sense  and  practical  intelligibility  of 
Polybius  suited  him.  Living  about  a  court  Hke  that  of 
Henri  iv,  where  literature  was  in  low  esteem,  he  felt 
keenly  the  desire  to  evince  its  value  to  men  of  the 
world.  Not  Ronsard,  but  Malherbe,  the  versifier  of  good 
sense,  was  now  the  fashionable  poet.  Casaubon's  cele- 
brated preface  to  his  Polybius,  which  was  long  considered 
one  of  the  masterpieces  of  modern  latin,  is  entirely  a  pifece 
de  circonstance.  It  must  be  read  as  addressed  to  the 
court — the  court  of  1609.  '  The  statesman  should  read 
history,' is  its  thesis;  and  by  history,  classical  history  is 
intended.  In  it,  history,  and  pre-eminently  that  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  is  held  up  as  the  school  of  civil 
prudence  and  military  skill.  The  mere  literary  use  of  the 
classics,  the  reading  of  a  book  hke  Caesar's  Commentaries, 


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198  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

only  to  acquire  a  pure  style,  is  condemned.  Of  Polybius' 
sixth  book  he  says  that  it  ought  not  only  to  be  read,  but 
to  be  learned  by  heart,  by  all  princes,  generals,  and  public 
men.  Argument  and  example  are  employed  with  force, 
and  without  tedious  accumulation,  to  show  the  utility 
of  the  classics  to  public  men.  The  pleading  is  an  argu- 
mentum  ad  hominem,  for  it  is  addressed  to  the  ear 
of  Henri  iv's  court.  But  it  is  good  for  all  time,  and  is 
indeed  the  basis  on  which  the  defence  of  classical  education 
must  ultimately  rest.  '  The  finest  prefaces  ever  written,' 
said  Joseph  Warton  1,  adopting  a  dictum  of  Bayle,  '  were 
perhaps  that  of  Thuanus  to  his  History,  of  Calvin  to  his 
Institutes,  and  of  Casaubon  to  his  Polybius.'  Warton,  a 
critic  who  had  the  distinction  of  being  also  a  scholar,  ad- 
mired it  for  its  general  style  and  subject.  It  is  no  less  inter- 
esting to  us  as  a  historical  document,  peculiarly  addressed 
to  a  special  audience,  and  giving  us  a  measure  of  the  taste 
and  acquirements  of  what  was  called  '  the  court '  in  1609. 

The  object  he  had  in  view  in  editing  Polybius  not 
only  inspired  the  preface,  but  governed  the  character  of 
the  whole  volume.  From  not  attending  to  this  purpose, 
subsequent  editors  have  misjudged  the  edition.  Schweig- 
hseuser  has  blamed  Casaubon  for  his  negligent  indication 
of  the  sources  of  the  emendations  introduced  into  his  text. 
The  usual  apology  is, '  Such  was  the  habit  of  the  editors  of 
that  age.'  But  Casaubon's  omission  of  this  duty  must  be 
ascribed  not  to  want  of  accuracy,  but  to  such  accuracy 
being  beside  his  purpose.  He  wanted  to  make  Polybius 
readable.  If  he  were  to  be  read,  he  must  be  presented  in 
latin.  Accordingly,  upon  the  latin  translation  Casaubon 
spent  his  labour.  In  1588,  when  he  gave  Polyasnus  to  the 
press,  he  had  said  contemptuously  that  ^ '  he  could  not 
aiford  to  invest  good  hours  in  making  latin  translations ; 
that  was  a  kind  of  business  he  was  content  to  leave  to 

'  Warton's  Pope's  Works,  1797,  vol.  i.  p.  i  ;  Bayle,  Diet.  Art.  Calvin,  note  9. 
2  Praef.  in  Poly^n.  1588. 


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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610. 


199 


Others.'  Now  it  is  precisely  the  reverse.  The  translation 
is  his  first  concern.  His  Polybius  is  rather  to  be 
described  as  a  translation  accompanied  by  the  text,  than 
as.  an  edition  of  the  text.  He  has  indeed  altered  Ursinus' 
text  much,  but  often,  too,  the  emendation,  which  he  should 
have  introduced  into  the  text,  appears  only  in  the  version. 
The  version  does  not,  in  these  cases,  correspond  to  the 
text  in  the  accompanying  column.  But,  in  such  cases,  it  is 
the  latin,  and  not  the  greek,  which  gives  what  Casaubon 
supposed  Polybius  to  have  written.  ^ '  I  can  answer  for  the 
fidelity  of  my  translation,'  he  writes  to  Scaliger.  '  I  wish  I 
was  equally  certain  of  its  latinity.  But  how  few  of  us  now 
can  write  good  latin !  By  the  way  I  can  tell  you  what  will 
amuse  you.  You  know  how  the  Italians  have  admired 
Perotti's  latin  in  his  version  (of  Polybius).  No  wonder! 
for  when  the  good  fellow  is  puzzled  by  Polybius'  greek, 
which  happens  sometimes,  he  has  transcribed  the  parallel 
passage  from  Livy,  who,  you  know,  follows  Polybius 
often  pretty  closely.' 

If  it  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  Casaubon  should  have 
been  driven  from  Chrysostom  to  Polybius,  it  must  be 
more  so  that  he  should  have  embarked  four  years  of  his 
limited  span  upon  what  is  little  more  than  a  latin  transla- 
tion. For  there  was  no  commentary.  The  notes  were 
reserved  for  a  second  volume,  which  never  appeared, 
and  which  was  never  written.  What  was  found  of  this 
kind  after  his  death  among  his  papers  amounted  to  about 
200  pages,  and  was  published  in  a  small  volume  by 
Antoine  Estienne,  1617.  In  these  notes,  though  the  old 
manner  of  illustration  is  preserved,  there  is  constantly 
present  an  intention  of  dweUing  upon  the  practical  lessons 
of  history.  He  will  turn  aside  to  quote  something  not  very 
relevant  because  it  contains  words  of  pohtical  wisdom  ^. 

Yet,   after  all   these  imperfections,  such  is  the  power 

1  Ep.  485. 

'  Comm.  in  Polyb.  p.  88;   '  Verba  civilis  prudenti^  plenissima.' 


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aoo  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

of  knowledge,  that  Casaubon's  Polybius  has  deserved 
that  Schweighaeuser  ^  should  say  of  it,  that  '  there  is  not 
a  page  of  it  which  does  not  show  how  much  Polybius 
owes  to  the  learning  and  sagacity  of  that  industrious 
editor.'  It  may  be  instructive  to  observe  that  even 
Casaubon's  knowledge  did  not  preserve  him  from  making 
blunders  as  a  translator.  Henri  Valois^  says  on  this: 
'  Out  of  the  numbers  of  translators  of  greek  books  whom 
we  have  had,  who  is  there  who  has  not  occasionally 
shpped  ?  The  latin  version  of  Polybius  by  Isaac  Casaubon 
is  held  by  common  consent  as  one  of  the  best  and  most 
correct  which  we  have.  And  yet  it  is  not  free  from 
blunders.' 

The  work  engaged  him  from  the  end  of  August,  1605, 
to  August  28,  1609,  on  which  day  he  revised  the  last  proof 
sheet.  He  did  not  print  with  his  wife's  connections, 
Estienne  and  Patisson,  who  had  published  the  Gregorius 
Nyssenus  for  him  in  1606.  Though  they  possessed  some 
greek  type,  they  had  neither  the  capital  nor  the  plant  for 
a  folio  of  1250  pages.  Estienne  (R.  Stephanus  iii.)  was 
also  a  notoriously  slow  printer,  out  of  whom  it  was 
difficult  to  extract  a  proof  sheet.  It  is  true  his  slowness 
proceeded  from  his  scrupulous  accuracy,  and  even 
learning.  He  would  come  down  himself,  all  the  way, 
to  Casaubon  to  consult  him  about  an  accent  which  he 
thought  wrongly  placed  ^  Though  inferior  to  the  best 
specimens  of  Robert  Estienne  (R.  Stephanus  i.)  or 
Turnebus  of  fifty  years  before,  the  Polybius  of  1609  is 
among  the  finest  specimens  of  Paris  printing.  But  latin 
and  greek  upon  the  same  page  cannot  show  either  type 
to  advantage. 

It  was  turned  out  by  Drouard  (Jerome),  who  had  pub- 
lished the  Hist.  Aug.  Scriptores  in  1603,  and  who  after- 
wards, with  Cramoisy,Beys,  and  Co.,  formed  the  association 

'  Schweigh.  prsef.  in  Polyb.  p;  Ixxx. 
"  Excerpta  Constantini,  1634,  ad  lect.  =  Ep.  550. 


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IV.]  PARTS.     1600-1610.  301 

known  as  '  a  la  navire,'  for  publishing  the  greek  fathers. 
Drouard  had  a  connection  with  Wechel  at  Frankfort, 
which  enabled  him  to  secure  the  German  sale  for  his 
books.  Early  sheets  were  transmitted  through  the  am- 
bassador to  Marny,  who  carried  on  Wechel's  business, 
and  he  issued  the  book  for  Germany  with  another  title-page 
as  his  own  ^.  This  was  not  a  piratical  invasion  of  Drouard's 
property,  but  an  arrangement  between  the  publishers,  by 
which  the  copyright  was  secured  in  the  empire.  Drouard 
was  a  man  of  substance,  for  such  a  volume  could  not  be 
produced  without  a  large  outlay, — at  the  present  day  it 
would  cost  from  i^8oo  to  ;^900  to  bring  out — and  we  hear 
of  none  of  the  vexations  which  attended  the  publication 
of  the  Athenaeus  with  the  Harsys  of  Lyon,  or  of  any 
advances  of  cash  by  Casaubon  towards  the  cost  of  printing. 
Casaubon  had  appHed,  through  the  chancellor  Sillery, 
for  permission  to  dedicate  to  the  king.  Bruslart  de  Sil- 
lery, who  had  recently  become  chancellor  (1607),  had 
known  Casaubon  many  years  before  at  Geneva,  when  on 
a  diplomatic  mission  to  Switzerland.  Like  some  others 
of  '  the  court,'  he  was  not  without  his  share  of  letters, 
and  Casaubon  had  brought  out  his  Theophrastus  in 
1592  under  his  patronage.  But  his  interests  were  now 
entirely  gone  into  making  his  political  career,  and  if  he 
patronised  Casaubon  on  this  occasion,  jealousy  of  Sully 
had  probably  more  to  do  with  it,  than  favour  to  the 
book^.  However,  the  chancellor  obtained  the  permis- 
sion, which  was  given  in  a  way  which  seemed  to  intimate 
that  the  dedication  would  be  more  acceptable  from  a 
catholic^-     The  king's  name  was  an  advertisement,  and 


^  Goldasti  epp.  p.  156. 

2  Casaubon  acknowledges  that  Sillery  had  always  stood  his  friend.  Ep. 
934  :  '  Dominum  cancellarium,  cujus  unius  ope  atque  auctoritate  reculas  meas 
isthic  stare  nullus  dubito.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  651  :  '  Vocatus  ad  prandium  hodie  a  cancellario  Fr.  (Franciae) 
D.  Silerio  nonnuUa  cum  spe  sum  reversus,  fore  ut  Polybius  nostcr  regi  sit 
acceptus,  sed  ego  artes  aulicorum  novi.' 


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20Z  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

it   was   the  interest  both   of  editor  and   printer  that    it 
should  figure  on  the  title-page. 

Next  came  the  business  of  presenting  copies,  hand- 
somely bound,— the  binding  at  the  author's  cost\  This 
was  often  a  heavy  tax ;  Casaubon,  with  his  many  great 
friends,  had  to  give  away  fifty-five  copies  of  Polybius. 
The  tax  on  time  was  heavy  too,  as  many  of  these  had 
to  be  offered  in  person.  The  first  copy  was  for  the 
chancellor,  who  had  obtained  the  permission,  and  who 
now  undertook  to  bespeak  a  favourable  moment  for  the 
presentation  of  the  royal  copy.  On  a  day  appointed 
Casaubon  attends  at  the  Tuileries.  The  hour  is  not 
propitious ;  he  is  desired  to  come  again,  or  better,  to 
Fontainebleau,  where  royalty  has  more  leisure.  He 
waits  a  fortnight,  and  goes  out  to  Fontainebleau,  carry- 
ing his  folio.  His  own  reception  was,  as  always,  gra- 
cious ;  but  ^ '  my  work  was  received,  as  it  was  to  be 
expected  it  would,  by  one  who  is  absolutely  illiterate.' 
The  chancellor,  who  had  repeatedly  promised  to  explain 
to  Henri  what  the  business  was,  had,  of  course,  for- 
gotten all  about  it.  Casaubon's  elaborate  compliments 
in  the  preface  were  thrown  away.  In  vain  he  had  re- 
minded Henri  '  of  what  you  once  told  me  yourself, 
Sire,  that  you  had,  when  a  child,  translated  the  whole 
of  Caesar's  Commentaries  into  french,  for  your  preceptor 
Florent  Chrestien.'  He  returned  from  Fontainebleau 
disgusted  with  courts,  angry  with  himself  for  his  dedi- 
cation, laughing  a  bitter  laugh  at  the  folly  of  it  all. 
However,  after  he  was  gone,  some  one,  perhaps  Sillery, 
made  the  king  understand, — not  the  latin  preface,  but 
his  obhgation  as  dedicatee.  When  La  Boderie,  ambas- 
sador at   S.  James',   was    asked    ^'if  Henri    iv.  would 


^  Ephem.  474  :  *  Hie  fructus  nostrarum  vigiliai-um,  quas  postquam  in  lucem 
emisimus,  ingens  occurrit  numerus  eorumquibus  necessario  dandi  sint.' 
^  Ephem.  p.  693  :   '  Qui  literarum  est  rcXeajs  rudis.' 
^  Fortescue  Papers,  Camden  .Societj',  p.  4,  note. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     ]  600-1610. 


303 


receive  a  copy  of  James  I's  "  Apologia  pro  juramento," 
he  discreetly  answered  that  his  master  would  doubtless 
receive  it,  but  he  would  not  answer  for  his  reading  it' 
That  Henri  would  read  a  line  of  Casaubon's  elaborate 
preface  is  not  to  be  supposed.  But  he  could  under- 
stand that  a  poor  scholar,  with  a  host  of  children,  had 
embarked  all  his  time  and  learning  for  many  years  in 
the  present  now  laid  at  his  feet.  A  few  days  afterwards 
Casaubon  was  surprised  by  a  call  from  a  maitre  de  re- 
quites, one  Gourges,  who  was  great  in  the  business 
of  conversions,  and  hung  much  about  Casaubon  with 
this  view.  On  this  occasion  it  was  not  Casaubon's  soul 
he  came  to  save,  but  a  thousand  crowns  he  brought — 
and  this  not  in  a  paper  order,  which  might  have  been 
subject  to  a  heavy  discount,  but  so  many  hard  gold 
pieces  in  a  bag. 

The  entiy  in  the  diary  ^  lets  us  see  that  acceptable  as 
the  money  was,  the  appreciation  pleased  much  more. 
The  present  was  handsome;  too  much  for  a  huguenot. 
But  then  Henri  had  just  given  100,000  crowns  to  the 
Jesuits  of  La  Fleche  to  finish  their  chapel  with.  And 
1000  crowns,  after  all,  was  about  half  what  he  had  once 
paid  for  an  embroidered  handkerchief  for  Gabrielle. 

What  of  literary  appreciation  might  be  in  store  for 
the  Polybius  must  come  from  abroad.  In  Paris  it 
passed  unheeded.  In  the  university  of  Paris  there  was 
no  one  who  could  distinguish  greek  of  Casaubon  from 
greek  of  Morel  or  Fronto  le  Due.  Lestoile,  who  col- 
lected all  the  pamphlets  and  squibs  of  the  day,  and 
gives  us  title  and  cost  of  each,  makes  no  mention  of 
Casaubon's  publication,  though  he  had  evidently  seen 
the  book,  and  been  reading  it,  as  he  quotes  from  it, 
under  September  7,  two  passages,  one  of  which  he 
finds  very  applicable  to  Sully,  whom  he  detested.     In 

'  Ephem.  696  :  '  Non  sine  honore  verborum.' 

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a04  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

1607,  William  Becher  sends  Camden  ^,  among  other 
Paris  gossip,  the  news  that  '  Mons^  Casaubon  hath  two 
pieces  coming  forth,  but  neither  of  them  yet  finished, 
Polybius,  and  another,  "  De  libertate  ecclesiastica," ' 
adding  that  of  the  latter  ^ '  there  is  great  expectation.' 

During  the  four  years'  work  on  Polybius,  we  have 
a  renewal  of  the  same  mental  symptoms  and  conditions 
as  were  brought  out  by  the  Athenaeus.  At  one  time 
feverish  intensity  of  apphcation,  impatient  of  any  inter- 
ruption ;  at  another  disgust  at  the  self-imposed  task, 
and  wish  to  be  reading  Christian  literature.  There  are 
times  when,  as  he  tells  Rittershusius  ^,  he  is  '  thankful 
to  be  compelled  by  his  engagement  to  busy  himself  in 
his  task,  that  he  may  shut  out  the  many  sorrows  and 
vexations  of  his  life.'  His  shrinking  from  intrusion  and 
hindrance  amounts  to  an  indifference  to  external  events, 
an  indifference  which  grows  upon  him.  Then  physical 
fatigue,  the  amount  of  mere  mechanical  labour  attendant 
on  the  production  of  a  thick  folio,  the  irregularity  of 
the  printers,  the  workmen  one  while  taking  unreasonable 
holiday,  '  improbe  luxuriantur ; '  at  another,  pressing  for 
copy  till  he  has  to  send  each  sentence  of  translation  to 
press  as  fast  as  it  is  made,  '  ut  quaeque  periodus  erat 
versa,'  break  him  down  momentarily,  and  he  longs  to 
be  quit  of  it.  No  sooner  is  he  quit  than  he  begins 
again.  He  allows  the  booksellers  to  extort  from  him  * 
promises  to  revise  for  second  editions  his  '  Theophrastus ' 
and  his  '  Suetonius.'  As  soon  as  these  are  done  he  will 
set  about  his  commentary  on  Polybius.  Meanwhile,  he 
undertakes  to  lecture  to  a  class  on  Aristotle's  '  Pohtics.' 

Slavish  work  at  the  desk,  begun  sometimes  at  3  a.m., 
and  worry  out  of  doors,  seem  at  this  period  to  make  up 
the  sum  of  our  author's  life.     But  the  picture  is  not  one 

^  Camdeni  Epp.  ep.  65.  2  ggg  above,  p.  195. 

'  Ep.  611  :  '  Juvit  me  non  mediocriter  quod  per  inchoatam  dudum  Polybii 
editionem  cessare  mihi  non  licebat.'  *  Ep.  654. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  305 

of  unmitigated  gloom.  The  refrain  ^,  '  ego  vero  vix,  ac  ne 
vix  quidem  jam  aerumnis  par  sum,'  from  time  to  time  gives 
place  to  a  somewhat  more  cheerful  strain.  The  five  years, 
from  1605  to  1610,  were  on  the  whole,  for  Casaubon  as  for 
France,  years  of  prosperity  and  comfort,  if  not  of  calm. 
Casaubon's  timorous  and  apprehensive  spirit  occasionally 
feels  these  influences.  Halcyon  days  of  repose — otium — he 
calls  them  once  or  twice  ^,  but  adds  characteristically,  that 
this  repose  '  has  a  suspiciousness  about  it  when  he  thinks 
of  his  sins.'  But  this  repose — otium — means  for  him  not 
the  dreamy  slippered  ease  of  the  litterateur  of  academy 
days,  but  sustained  and  fagging  drudgery.  Many  a  day 
the  only  entry  in  the  diary  is,  '  My  daily  task,  thanks  be  to 
God  ^.'  The  amount  of  labour,  mental  and  mechanical, 
which  is  intimated  by  this  short  phrase,  must  be  estimated 
by  reference  to  his  printed  books,  and  to  the  still  extant 
Adversaria,  from  which  his  books  proceeded. 

Rare  Were  the  occasions  on  which  he  allowed  himself 
relaxation.  In  1603  he  took  a  couple  of  months,  May  and 
June,  for  a  visit  to  his  mother  and  friends  in  the  south,  and 
at  Geneva.  Madame  Casaubon  accompanied  him,  making 
the  journey  on  horseback,  except  the  last  stage  from  Dijon 
to  Paris,  when  she  took  the  coach.  The  rate  of  travelling 
by  this  conveyance  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
Casaubon,  who  was  on  horseback,  arrived  at  home  some 
hours  before  the  coach  *. 

A  retirement  into  country  shades  from  Paris  glare  and 
dust  was  as  necessary  then  as  since.  Casaubon  was 
occasionally  invited  to  pass  a  few  days  at  de  Thou's 
country  house  at  Villebonne,  the  retreat  of  the  learned  and 
the  wise,  as  his  hotel  in  Paris  was  their  gathering  place  ®. 
Such  visits  might  not  be  all  holiday.    On  one  of  these 

>  Ephem.  546.  "  Ephem.  pp.  447.  545. 

'  tA  kyKvKKia-  ©cS  X"^/"'.  '  Ephem.  504. 

'  Ephem.  441  :  '  Diem  egimus  in  hoc  amffinissimo  praetorio,  et  suavissimis  de 
Uteris  sermonibus,  aut  ambulationibus  cum  magno  Thuano,  uxore  mea,  aut  aliis 
amicis.' 

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206  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Rigaltius  began  his  edition  of  Artemidorus,  and  found 
the  genius  loci,  or  the  society  of  de  Thou,  a  great  aid  ^- 
On  another  occasion  Casaubon  is  obliged  to  put  off  his 
visit  for  a  week  by  the  physician,  who  is  bleeding  him. 
And  he  regrets  it  because  '  I  had  already  in  imagination 
devoured  one  or  two  books  in  your  library,  which  I  had 
decided  on  reading  at  Villebonne  ^.'  At  another  time 
Casaubon  makes  a  party  to  visit  the  palace,  new  and  old, 
at  S.  Germain's ' :  not,  however,  without  a  groan  at  the  loss 
of  time,  and  a  prayer  that  as  much  as  he  came  short  in 
learning,  so  much  he  might  profit  in  piety !  These  were 
rare  indulgences,  once  or  twice  in  the  season.  By-and-by 
he  seeks  to  secure  a  pied-a-terre  for  himself.  First  at 
Madrid,  in  the  Bois,  where  a  few  houses  had  grown  round 
the  summer-house  built  by  Francis  i.  after  his  captivity  in 
Spain.  Henri  iv.  did  not  much  affect  Madrid.  But  on 
one  occasion  his  restless  roaming  brought  him  thither,  on 
a  day,  August  22,  1601,  when  Casaubon  happened  to  be 
there.  The  Persian  etiquette  of  the  17th  century,  which 
separated  prince  and  subject,  did  not  yet  exist.  Henri 
immediately  took  Casaubon  into  his  company,  and  showed 
him  over  the  rooms  in  the  chateau,  talking  all  the  while 
most  seriously  on  religious  subjects*. 

In  1606  came  the  year  of  the  plague,  and  consequent  panic, 
when  all  who  could  rushed  from  the  city.  Casaubon  at 
first  resolved  to  stay  by  his  work  and  the  library.  Indeed, 
Lestoile  affirms®  that  the  alarm  was  greater  than  the 
danger;  that  the  death-rate  of  Paris  in  ordinary  times  was 
eight  per  day,  and  this  was  not  increased  by  the  pestilence. 
And  Casaubon   thinks  ^  that  the  hard  winter  of  1607-8 

'  Artemidorus  Rigaltii,  1603.  praef. :  '  Quum  una  tecum  essem  in  Villabonio 
tuo,  ne  amcEnissima  rusticatione  abuti  viderer    .     .     .' 

^  Mss.  bibl.  nat.  collection  Dupuy,  708.  Cas.  to  de  Thou,  without  date,  but 
probably  i6og  :  '  Jam  spe  carta  devoraveram  unum  aut  alterum  librum  quem 
isthic  legere  constitueram.' 

°  Ephem.  302.  *  Ephem.  367  :  '  Graves  de  pietate  sermones.' 

°  Registre-journal,  p.  409.  «  Ep.  593. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1 6io.  307 

carried  off  more  than  the  plague  of  1606  had  done.  He 
complains  of  the  want  of  sanitary  police  in  Paris,  the 
nurses  from  the  hospitals  walking  about  the  streets  in 
broad  day  without  so  much  as  warning  those  they  met  to 
keep  their  distance,  a  thing  which  would  not  have  been 
tolerated  in  Lyon.  When  his  own  friends  and  neigh- 
bours began  to  die  off,  he  thought  it  prudent  to  withdraw 
to  a  greater  distance  than  Madrid.  The  place  he  selected 
was  La  Bretonni^re,  eight  leagues  from  Paris,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Chartres.  The  following  summer  was 
one  of  excessive  heat,  succeeded  by  a  winter  of  great 
severity^.  He  now  accepted  from  his  friend  Mercier  des 
Bordes  a  refuge  on  his  estate  at  Grigny,  on  the  Seine 
above  Paris.  Besides  the  convenience  of  water  conveyance 
for  the  distance  of  five  leagues,  it  was  near  Hablon,  and 
the  chateau  of  des  Bordes  had  itself  the  right  of  exercise  of 
the  reformed  worship^.  This  gite  Casaubon  retained  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  even  after  his  removal  to  England. 

Attendance  on  the  public  ordinances  of  his  sect  was  not 
to  Casaubon  an  irksome  duty  which  he  discharged  with 
reluctance,  it  was  a  delight  and  a  solace.  He  well  under- 
stood that  to  read  Chrysostom  in  his  study  was  far  more 
edifying  than  most  of  what  was  to  be  heard  in  a  sermon. 
But  the  congregational  sentiment,  powerful  at  all  times, 
becomes  an  urgent  necessity  to  a  down-trodden  sect, 
writhing  under  the  insults  of  a  wealthy  and  arrogant 
church.  Avaricious,  as  we  have  seen,  of  his  hours  and 
minutes,  Casaubon  never  grudges  the  whole  day  which 
his  journey  to  Hablon  or  Charenton  consumed.  He  goes, 
not  regularly,  it  was  impossible,  but  whenever  he  can.  He 
records  a  regret  whenever  he  is  prevented  from  going. 
This,  indeed,  happens  often ;  no  wonder,  when  we 
remember   his  multiplied    engagements  in  a  dependent 

^  Dan.  Chamier,  Journal,  p.  64. 

"  Under  the  Edict,  the  assembly  for  this  purpose  in  the  manoirs  of  lords,  not 
being  hauts  justiciers,  must  not  exceed  thirty  persons. 

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ao8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

position,  and  the  preparation  required  to  face  the  distance 
and  the  bad  weather  so  common  in  the  fickle  climate  of 
Paris.  For  four  years  of  his  residence  there,  1601-1606, 
the  place  of  meeting  for  the  protestants  of  the  capital  was 
at  Hablon,  ten  miles  distant  from  the  centre  of  the  city. 
The  Parisians  who,  says  Lestoile,  'would  think  it  less 
wicked  to  enter  a  brothel  than  a  protestant  meeting-house,' 
could  not  endure  heresy  nearer.  Hablon  was  on  the 
Seine,  and  the  journey  to  and  fro  was  made,  when  the 
state  of  the  water  permitted,  in  a  towbarge.  At  other 
times  Casaubon  must  walk  both  ways,  unless  he  could 
get  a  seat  in  the  carriage  of  some  rich  coreligionist — the 
Arnalds  or  Du  Plessis  Mornay.  The  diary  abounds  in 
entries  which  relate  to  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  these 
Sunday  expeditions. 

'  March  3,  1602.  To-day,  self,  wife,  daughter,  and 
some  of  our  household  got  to  Hablon,  and  though  we 
suffered  much  from  the  bitter  wind,  we  returned  safe  and 
sound.' 

'  March  24,  1602.  Set  off,  self,  wife,  and  Philippa,  for 
Hablon.  But  on  getting  down  to  the  quay,  found  that  the 
boat  was  already  full  three  times  over.' 

'  May  13,  1602.  Went  down  to  the  quay,  but  the  boat 
could  not  start  as  the  wind  was  too  high.' 

'  December  29,  1602.  The  service  to-day  was  longer 
than  usual.  I  was  returning  late  in  the  carriage  of  two 
noble  ladies,  Madame  de  Cricebant,  and  Madame  de 
Mantaleon,  when  the  coachman  lost  the  way  in  the  dark. 
One  of  the  horses  got  into  the  river,  and  was  with  difficulty 
got  out,  half  drowned.  It  was  a  mercy  we  were  not  all 
lost.' 

'  December  24,  1607.  The  fatigue  of  yesterday  (walking 
both  ways  to  Charenton)  prevented  me  from  doing  any- 
thing all  day.' 

'  January  6,  1608.  My  wife  was  to  have  gone  to  Cha- 
renton to-day  in  the  carriage  of  the  ladies  Arnald.     But 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  309 

finding  the  cold  too  severe,  she  arranged  that  I  should 
take  her  seat.  We  set  off,  but  could  not  go  very  far ;  the 
icy  cutting  wind  made  it  impracticable  for  the  horses  to 
move  against  it.' 

'  November  8,  1609.  The  church  throughout  France 
keeps  its  fast  to-day.  We  went  and  heard  three  sermons, 
from  Du  MouHn,  Le  Faucheur,  and  Durand,  discourses 
adapted  to  the  occasion  with  wonderful  skill  and  piety.  I 
was  so  moved,  that  I  was  hardly  master  of  myself  Both 
myself  and  my  wife,  forgetting  the  miseries  we  had  gone 
through  in  the  morning  in  a  wretched  little  barge,  prayed 
God  that  he  would  grant  us  more  such  days.' 

On  one  of  these  expeditions  he  was  in  very  great 
danger.  We  relate  the  incident  in  his  own  words — he 
tells  it  twice,  once  in  a  letter  to  Scaliger  ^  and  in  the  diary 
under  date, 

'July  20,  1608.  We  set  off  for  Charenton,  my  wife, 
John,  Meric,  and  my  sister.  When  we  got  down  to  the 
quay,  though  it  had  not  yet  struck  seven,  we  found  all  the 
boats  gone  except  a  wretched  wherry,  without  any  awning. 
After  some  hesitation,  we  got  into  it,  as  we  did  not  wish 
to  lose  our  service.  We  had  got  half  way,  when,  by  some 
mismanagement,  a  heavy  barge,  towed  by  two  horses,  ran 
into  us  astern.  John  and  Meric  and  my  sister  scrambled 
into  the  barge.  I  looked  round  for  my  wife,  and  saw  her 
faint  with  terror,  fallen  into  the  Seine  with  half  her  body, 
the  rest  in  the  wherry,  which  began  to  fill.  With  a  sudden 
exertion  of  all  my  forces,  physical  and  moral,  I  got  her 
within  reach  of  the  people  in  the  barge,  who  pulled  her 
in.  In  doing  this,  I  had  let  go  my  hold  on  the  larger  boat, 
and  was  nearly  lost  myself,  if  my  wife's  cries  had  not 
called  the  others  to  my  succour.  The  only  loss  I  sus- 
tained in  the  accident  was  my  book  of  psalms— my  greek 
testament  I  recovered  all  wet  out  of  the  water.  The 
psalm-book  was  precious  to  me,  as  I  had  presented  it  on 

'  Ep.  706. 
P 

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210  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

our  marriage  to  my  dear  wife,  and  had  used  it  continually 
for  two-and-twenty  years.  I  did  not  find  it  out  till  we  began 
to  sing  in  the  temple,  and  I  put  my  hand  into  my  pocket, 
and  it  was  gone.  By  a  singular  coincidence  the  psalm 
was  86 :  "  Tirant  ma  vie  du  bord  Du  bas  tombeau  de  la 
mort."  We  had  been  singing,  I  and  my  wife,  on  board  the 
boat,  as  we  usually  do,  and  had  just  arrived  at  the  seventh 
verse  of  the  92nd  psalm  when  the  collision  took  place.  I 
could  not  but  remember  that  place  of  S.  Ambrose,  where 
he  says  ....  that  "  this  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  book  of 
Psalms,  that  every  one  can  use  its  words  as  if  they  were 
peculiarly  and  individually  his  own." ' 

We  may  imagine  what  must  have  been  the  sufferings 
of  the  women  and  the  delicate, — we  hear  of  infants  dying 
on  their  way  to  baptism.  As  long  as  only  poor  hugue- 
nots endured  these  hardships,  they  might  have  continued 
unrelieved.  But  two  men,  who  still  retained  influence  at 
court,  happened  to  be  of  the  persecuted  sect.  Sully  and 
Calignon.  By  their  influence  an  edict  was  obtained 
removing  the  place  of  exercise  to  Charenton  S.  Maurice, 
distant  only  two  miles,  and  also  on  the  Seine,  the  temple 
being  close  to  the  landing-place  of  the  boats.  Nearer 
than  this  it  was  not  safe  to  bring  the  place  of  exercise. 
But  sometimes  the  duchess  of  Bar  came  to  court,  and 
braved  her  brother's  displeasure  by  having  le  preche  in 
her  lodging.  At  times  there  was  a  French  sermon  ^  at 
the  English  embassy,  and  on  all  such  occasions  Casaubon 
gladly  embraces  the  opportunity  of  attending. 

That  his  public  communion  with  his  church  was  a  senti- 
ment which  lay  near  Casaubon's  heart  is  more  surely 
proved  by  the  large  part  it  occupies  in  his  thoughts,  and 
the  sacrifices  of  time  he  ungrudgingly  makes  to  it,  than  by 
any  overt  assurances  he  utters.  Indeed  the  impediments 
to  the  free  exercise  of  his  culte,  and  the  desire  to  taste  its 
unrestricted  enjoyment,  had  no   small  share   among   the 

'  Ephem.  597. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  ail 

motives  which  made  him  seek  removal  from  Paris.  In 
1601  he  wrote  to  Heraldus  ^  '  Both  my  wife  and  myself 
are  impatient  under  the  famine  of  the  word  of  God,  which 
we  endure  here.  It  is  seldom  and  with  much  difficulty 
that  we  can  get  out  to  Hablon.  We  have  not  been 
accustomed  to  this  deprivation.'  The  desire  had  not 
abated  in  1607,  though  Casaubon's  ideas  had  undergone 
considerable  enlargement  in  the  interval,  and  his  calvinis- 
tic  prejudices  were  being  supplanted  by  a  church  ideal 
founded  on  the  fathers  of  the  fourth  century. 

Besides  the  deprivation  of  the  ordinances  of  religion, 
there  were  other  reasons  why  a  protestant,  and  a  pen- 
sioner of  the  court,  should  feel  his  position  in  Paris 
precarious.  The  animus  of  the  lower  populace  towards 
the  calvinists  was  not  changed  since  the  Bartholomew,  it 
was  only  lulled  to  sleep.  The  pays  latin,  the  students, 
the  swarms  of  fanatical  friars  and  monks,  which  the 
countless  convents  harboured,  were  no  less  ready  for  a 
bloody  fray  than  they  had  ever  been.  On  Sunday, 
September  18,  1605^,  a  placard  was  found  posted  up 
at  the  gate  Saint  Victor,  summoning  the  scholars  {they 
had  ceased  to  be  called  clercs)  to  assemble  after  dinner  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine  with  clubs  and  arms,  'pour  la 
s'opposer  aux  insolences  de  la  maudite  sect  huguenote 
et  abloniste.'  The  police  was  strong  enough  to  prevent 
worse  consequences  on  this  occasion  than  a  single  assass- 
ination. But  the  '  vaches  a  Colas '  (this  was  the  slang 
designation  of  the  huguenots)  had  an  intimation  on  this, 
and  on  one  or  two  other  like  occasions,  of  the  volcano 
that  was  sleeping  below. 

The  violence  of  the  mob  was  uncertain  and  restrained 
by  the  government ;  the  gradual  undermining  of  the  legal 
liberties  secured  to  the  protestants  was  allowed  and 
encouraged.  Henri  had  undertaken  to  the  pope,  Clement 
viii,  so  to  manipulate  '  the  edict  which  I  have  published  for 

'  Ep.  1023.  ■ "  Lestoile,  Reg.-journ.  suppl.  p.  388. 

P   2 

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213  ISAAC  CAS  A  [/BON.  [Sect. 

the  tranquillity  of  my  kingdom  that  its  solid  results  shall  be 
in  favour  of  the  cathoHc  religion.'  He  kept  his  promise. 
The  system,  which  went  on  till  it  culminated  in  the  revo- 
cation of  the  edict,  may  be  said  to  have  commenced  from 
its  first  publication,  1598.  To  worry  the  protestants  became 
the  occupation  of  every  bishop  throughout  France.  To 
interpret  the  edict  always  in  favour  of  the  catholic  suitor 
was  the  rule  for  every  court  of  justice.  To  goad  them 
into  revolt,  and  then  to  crush  them  with  armed  hand,  was 
the  policy  of  every  civil  governor  who  sought  to  recom- 
mend himself  to  authority.  The  clergy  never  met  in 
their  annual  assembhes  without  lodging  gravamina  of  the 
'  insolence '  of  the  heretics,  and  extorting  from  the  crown 
an  enlargement  of  their  own  privileges,  which  was  always 
stated,  pro  forma,  to  be  '  without  prejudice  to  the  edict.' 

Still,  as  long  as  Henri  lived,  no  general  attempt  to  upset 
the  edict  was  to  be  apprehended.  In  1605,  Casaubon  was 
greatly  alarmed  at  the  turn  things  were  taking,  and  had 
almost  made  up  his  mind  to  leave.  Scaliger  writes  back  ^ 
that  gloomy  as  the  prospect  was  for  the  future,  he  saw  no 
reason  for  thinking  the  danger  was  immediate  :  that  even 
if  Casaubon  was  resolved  upon  departure,  he  could  not  do 
so  without  permission  obtained  from  the  king,  and  that 
whether  the  permission  were  granted  or  not,  the  having 
asked  it  would  be  equally  an  offence. 

Looking  to  the  sources  of  the  troubles  and  annoyances 
which  beset  Casaubon  during  his  Parisian  period,  creating 
in  him  the  constant  desire  to  get  away,  they  are  found 
to  be  very  various,  and  some  of  them  such  as  change  of 
place  could  not  have  remedied. 

I.  The  discomforts  and  perils  attending  the  practices  of 
the  reformed  culte  have  been  already  noticed.  But  the 
religious  difficulty  was  by  no  means  confined  to  these 
occasions.  The  efforts  to  convert  him  occasionally 
intermitted,  but  only  to  revive  again  with   fresh  vigour, 

'  Seal.  epp.  p.  293. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  213 

and  in  a  more  overbearing  tone.  His  resistance  was 
resented.  His  obstinacy  in  heresy  was  ascribed  to  moral 
defects;  he  was  charged  with  ingratitude  towards  a 
benefactor.  It  was.  plainly  insinuated  that  the  king  had 
by  his  favours  bought  his  religion,  and  that  as  the  price 
had  been  paid,  it  was  now  quite  time  that  the  article  should 
be  delivered.  When  the  management  of  this  difficult  case 
was  handed  over  to  Du  Perron,  it  took,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  different  turn.  The  vulgar  means  of  suasion  were 
replaced  by  learned  argument.  The  former  kind  of  appeal 
could  be  met  by  blank  refusal ;  argument  must  be  encoun- 
tered by  argument,  citation  by  counter  citation.  Hence 
a  grievous  expenditure  of  precious  time  in  preparation, 
in  resisting  an  assault  sure  to  be  renewed  on  the  next 
occasion.  '  Loth  I  am,  my  God  is  witness,  to  waste  my 
time  in  this  kind  of  disputation.  It  is  not  my  fault.  I  am 
compelled  by  necessity  to  undergo  it,  though  I  take  care  to 
let  them  know  how  immovable  I  am  in  matter  of  religion.' 
The  siege  laid  to  his  religious  convictions  had  begun  with 
his  removal  to  Paris.  It  had  abated  nothing  of  its  vigour 
in  the  last  year  of  his  residence,  1609-10.  The  pages 
of  the  diary  are  full  of  such  entries  as  the  following : — 

'  March  6.  Several  hours  to-day  with  the  cardinal.  He 
sent  for  me  in  the  king's  name,  and  I  went,  though  most 
unwillingly.    We  had  much  and  serious  talk  of  religion.' 

'  December  10.  To-day  with  cardinal  Du  Perron,  and 
long  talk  of  rehgion.' 

'December  11.  Again  to-day,  a  severe  encounter  with 
the  cardinal.' 

'  December  21.  O  wretched  life  !  cannot  they  let  me 
alone,  but  must  make  it  their  business  to  pry  into  ray  faith. 
This  is  what  makes  my  life  a  burden !  What  folly  to  try 
to  persuade  me  that  their  church  cannot  err ! ' 

'  December  22.  With  cardinal  Perron  to-day,  having 
been  repeatedly  sent  for  by  him.' 

'  December  28.    To-day  with  cardinal  Perron.     He  is 

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314  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

really  great.  Would  that  he  were  always  a  defender  of 
sound  learning ! ' 

The  catastrophe  of  May  14,  1610,  suspended,  but  only 
for  a  time,  the  persevering  attempts  of  the  cardinal.  Du 
Perron  now  renewed  the  bait,  offered  years  before,  of 
a  professor's  chair  in  the  university,  and  the  persecution 
was  only  broken  off  ^  by  Casaubon's  departure  from  Paris. 
Rosweyd  asserted,  and  no  doubt  believed, '  that  Casaubon, 
convinced  by  the  weight  of  Du  Perron's  logic,  had  given 
a  promise  to  abjure  at  Whitsuntide.  That  the  death  of 
the  king  alone  interfered  with  the  execution  of  the  promise, 
causing  a  panic  among  the  calvinists  as  if  S.  Bartholomew 
was  to  be  repeated,  and  inducing  Casaubon  to  withdraw 
for  safety  to  England.' 

Baffled  by  Casaubon  himself,  the  convertisseurs  had 
turned  their  attention  to  Madame  Casaubon.  Here,  how- 
ever, they  could  get  no  prize  of  any  kind.  Her  simple 
Genevan  detestation  of  popery  was  impenetrable. 

They  tried  also  the  daughter,  Philippa.  From  this 
cherished  daughter  the  father  did  not  conceal  his  most 
secret  thoughts.  He  subjected  her  to  a  trial  which  we 
might  hardly  have  thought  justifiable,  but  that  he  considered 
it  a  duty  to  let  her  understand  how  her  worldly  interest  was 
involved  in  her  creed.  He  explained  to  her  the  temporal 
advantages  which  he  could  secure  for  her  if  she  became  a 
convert.  He  told  her  'that  she  was  penniless;  that  after  the 
wreck  of  his  patrimony,  he  could  give  her  no  portion  at 
which  any  respectable  Parisian  bourgeois  would  look;  that 
he  anxiously  desired  to  see  her  well  married ;  that  the  only 
hope  of  this  was  in  the  royal  bounty,  which  could  only  be 
obtained  by  conforming.'  This  was  indeed  to  put  his  child 
to  a  hard  trial.  But  it  was  with  a  thrill  of  delight  that  the 
father  heard  the  temptation,  not  only  overcome,  but  indig- 
nantly spurned  by  the  generous  girl.  '  It  was  wicked,' 
she  said,  '  even  to  deliberate  on  such  a  choice.     She  was 

'  Rosweyd,  Lex  Talionis,  ap.  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  85. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  215 

prepared  to  take  up  her  cross,  and  follow  Christ  even  to 
her  last  breath ;  if  her  father  could  leave  her  nothing,  God 
would  provide  for  her ;  she  would  work,  and  could  live 
upon  a  very  httle.'  God  did  provide  for  her;  she  was 
removed  from  this  world  at  the  age  of  nineteen. 

With  the  eldest  son,  John,  they  had  more  success.  A 
little  controversy,  backed  by  a  promise  of  a  pension  of  200 
crowns,  but  more,  perhaps,  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  place, 
and  the  example  of  those  about  him,  carried  him  over  in 
August  1610.  The  blow  fell  heavily  on  Isaac  at  a  period 
of  general  calamity.  After  Isaac's  death,  the  conversion 
of  his  son  was  exploite  by  the  flemish  Jesuit,  Rosweyd, 
as  evidence  of  the  father's  catholic  leanings.  Rosweyd 
roundly  asserted  ^  that  John  had  been  placed  under  a  scotch 
Jesuit,  George  Strahan,  ostensibly  as  mathematical  tutor, 
but  with  secret  instructions  to  draw  him  insensibly 
over  to  the  catholic  religion.  With  reference  to  this 
charge,  Lancelot  Andrewes,  bishop  of  Winchester,  told 
Meric  ^  that  he  had  himself  questioned  John  Casaubon 
on  the  subject.  John  had  then  made  the  following 
declaration :  '  As  to  the  step  I  took  in  changing  my 
religion,  I  am  obliged  by  my  conscience  to  clear  my 
father  before  God  and  men  of  all  cognizance  of  the  act. 
It  was  wholly  my  own  act,  I  did  not  consult  him.'  But 
the  diary  here  is  the  best  evidence,  and  evinces  how 
untrustworthy  is  the  gossip  of  the  Jesuit  colleges  which 
Rosweyd  credulously  states  as  fact.  Isaac  was  informed 
of  his  son's  perversion  Aug.  14,  1610,  and  the  entry  on 
that  day  is  one  mixed  of  anguish  and  wrath ;  bitter 
ejaculations  against  the  generation  of  vipers  who  have 
compassed  this  treachery  against  him,  and  entangled  in 
their  controversial  net  a  youth  wholly  ignorant  of 
theology. 

Besides  John,  a  nephew  of  Madame  Casaubon,  An- 
toine  Estienne,  son  of  Paul,  was  received  into  the  church 

'  Rosweyd,  Lex  Talionis,  praef.  "  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  87. 

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ai6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

by  cardinal  Du  Perron,  who  rewarded  him  by  making  him 
publisher  of  his  own  popular  writings. 

2.  Casaubon's  dependence  on  the  court  was,  in  other 
ways  than  that  of  being  regarded  as  an  unfulfilled  bargain, 
a  source  of  constant  discomfort  to  him.  Later  in  the 
century,  under  Louis  xiv,  pensions  were  the  fashion,  and 
a  literary  man  could  accept  one  from  a  sovereign  with- 
out any  sense  of  humiliation,  even  with  pride  at  being 
distinguished.  And  as  Casaubon  fairly  earned  his  salary 
at  the  library,  he  had  nothing  to  feel  on  this  score.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  was  as  yet  no  public  service.  All 
employes  were  the  servants  of  the  monarch.  The  librarian 
was  so  in  an  especial  manner.  It  was  '  the  king's  library,' 
and  he  was  '  king's  librarian.'  He  belonged  to  the  court, 
and  had  his  share  in  the  obligations  which  the  court 
imposed  on  all  within  its  circle.  There  was  no  humiliation, 
but  also  there  was  no  independence.  Life  then  was  a  system 
of  dependence.  The  roturier  placeman  was  dependent  on 
the  favour  of  the  noble ;  the  lesser  noble  on  '  les  grands ; ' 
the  great  noble  himself,  though  not,  at  this  period,  so 
entirely  as  at  a  later  time,  upon  the  king.  The  lowliness 
of  Casaubon's  situation,  and  the  paltriness  of  his  pay,  only 
made  the  ownership  more  unmistakable.  A  man  who  sells 
himself  so  cheap  must  be  supposed  to  have  sold  himself 
on  servile  conditions — to  have  made  himself  over,  body 
and  soul.  A  mistress  purchased  almost  at  her  weight  in 
crown  pieces,  may  bear  herself  proudly,  and  repel  her 
royal  lover  with  insolent  disdain.  The  poet  or  the  scholar, 
to  whom  a  pitiful  sum  is  grudgingly  doled  out,  may  not 
think,  speak,  or  write  his  own  thoughts.  Write  against 
Baronius !  No,  the  pope  does  not  allow  it.  Edit  a  greek 
father!  That  is  not  for  such  as  you.  Even  what  he 
received,  Casaubon  had  not  the  consolation  of  beheving  to 
be  given  as  recognition  of  learning.  His  literary  eminence 
had  no  other  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  Bearnais  roue,  but  as 
it  made  him  worth  buying  as  a  convert. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  217 

3.  Another  crook  in  his  lot  was  connected  with  his 
rehgion,  in  the  personal  share  he  began  to  have  in  the 
system  of  public  defamation  set  on  foot  at  this  time  by  the 
Jesuits.  Casaubon  was  named,  but  only  named,  not 
pilloried,  in  the  '  Amphitheatrura '  (1605)1.  The  order 
went  round  that  he  was  to  be  spared  in  print,  because 
there  were  hopes  of  him.  But  he  was  to  be  threatened, 
and  might  be  talked  against.  They  sent  him,  from 
their  libel-manufactory  at  Maintz,  a  title  page  of  a  book 
which  they  professed  to  have  in  the  press  against  him^. 
It  went  no  further  at  present  than  letting  him  know  that 
Scioppius,  at  Rome,  spoke  of  him  as  Thraso  and  atheist. 
Casaubon  says  of  this  in  a  letter  ^  to  Chessel  (CaseHus) 
at  Helmstadt:  'There  is,  I  beheve,  nothing  of  Thraso  in 
my  writings ;  and  if  I  were  an  atheist,  I  should  now  be  at 
Rome,  whither  I  have  been  often  invited.  I  am  resolved 
to  make  no  reply  to  the  snarlings  of  such  a  cur.'  When 
Henri  iv.  expressed  his  displeasure  for  the  book  he  was 
writing  'against  the  pope,'  Casaubon  alleged,  in  his  own 
defence  *,  that  '  for  the  space  of  three  years  last  past,  they 
have  been  describing  me  as  a  wicked  atheist,  as  pro- 
digiously ignorant,  and  are  now  engaged  in  compiling 
a  special  book  against  me,  full  of  scurrility.' 

It  is  observable  that  these  brutalities  did  not  emanate 
from  France  or  from  the  french  Jesuits.  Twenty  years 
before,  the  furious  preachers  of  the  league  had  vented 
enough  of  foul  language.  But  literary  controversy  in 
France,  even  when  most  bitter,  has  on  the  whole  been 
creditably  decorous.  It  has  often  been  cruel  and  insolent, 
but  it  has  not  known  the  depths  of  degradation  in  which 
the  German-Jesuit  pamphlets  of  this  period,  compounds  of 
the  beerhouse,  the  cloister,  and  the  brothel,  are  steeped. 


'  [The  book  referred  to  is  '  Clari  Bonarscii  Amphitheatrura  Honoris,'  the  real 
author  of  which  was  Carolus  Scribanius  (see  p.  397  below).  A  second  edition, 
with  a  fourth  book  added,  appeared  in  1606.] 

'  Ep.  555.  2  Ep.  516.  *  Ep.  577. 


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21 8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Scaliger  expostulates  ^  with  Marc  Welser,  an  Augsburg 
catholic,  on  this  ground.  '  It  is  Germany,  look  you, 
Germany,  once  the  mother  of  learning  and  learned  men, 
that  is  now  turning  the  service  of  letters  into  brigandage. 
My  France  produces  none  of  these  foul  scurrilities. 
From  your  presses  it  is  that  the  poisonous  matter  comes 
forth.  Antwerp,  you  will  say ;  but  Antwerp  only  reprints 
what  you  produce.  The  wretch  (Scioppius)  has  no  other 
motive  for  assailing  Casaubon,  than  mortification  at  his 
surpassing  merit.  It  is  Casaubon's  superiority  that  will 
not  allow  them  to  rest.  They  bark  whenever  they  hear 
his  name,  and  I  would  take  my  oath  that  they  can't  under- 
stand the  tenth  part  of  what  he  writes.' 

Though  Casaubon  was  spared  for  the  moment,  yet 
he  was  only  on  good  behaviour,  and  was  under  the 
surveillance  of  the  bandits.  He  could  not,  too,  but  share 
keenly  in  the  pain  inflicted  upon  his  honoured  friend  and 
master.  He  gave  Scaliger  all  the  sympathy  and  affection 
it  was  possible  to  give  under  his  trial.  Good  men  every- 
where, even  among  the  Parisian  catholics,  disapproved  the 
'  Amphitheatrum,'  but  not  as  emphatically  as  they  ought 
to  have  done.  Scaliger  was  bespattered  with  dirt,  and 
though  the  hand  that  threw  it  was  the  hand  of  a  scoun- 
drel, they  were  not  quite  sorry  it  was  done.  It  was  the 
interest  of  the  church  that  the  credit  of  the  huguenot 
critic  should  be  lowered.  Few  felt,  as  Casaubon  felt,  that 
learning  itself  was  insulted  and  outraged  in  the  person  of 
Scaliger.  Casaubon's  personal  share  might  be  less  than 
Scaliger's.  But  to  both  of  them  it  was  a  bitter  disillusion 
to  find  that  knowledge  which  they  had  devoted  life  to 
acquire,  was  the  unpardonable  crime  which  drew  down 
upon  them  an  overwhelming  load  of  slander  and  abuse. 

'  Seal.  epp.  p.  406  :  '  Vestra  Germania,  mi  Velsere,  quae  tot  eruditos  olim 
viros  protulit,  solum  hoc  spectare  videtur,  ut  nulla  alia  gens  sanctissimum  litter- 
arum  ministerium  in  latrocinium  convertisse  videatur.  ilia  sane  portenta  mea 
Gallia  non  producit.' 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1610.  319 

4.  But  it  was  not  only  on  the  side  of  catholics  that 
Casaubon  had  to  endure  much  misrepresentation.  His 
own  co-religionaries  were  not  a  little  troublesome  to  him. 
In  their  anxiety  for  his  steadfastness,  they  beset  him  with 
exhortation,  remonstrance,  or  objurgation,  according  as 
the  fears  or  hopes  of  the  writer  predominated  at  the 
moment.  In  1601,  he  had  found  it  advisable,  as  we:  have 
seen,  to  give  a  public  assurance  of  his  attachment  to  his 
principles,  in  a  letter  to  the  synod  of  Gergeau.  This 
served  for  a  time.  But  the  reports  gathered  head  again, 
from  time  to  time,  and  not  unnaturally.  When  his  con- 
version was  so  repeatedly  announced  as  a  fact  by  the 
catholic  party,  it  could  not  but  acquire  some  credit  among 
the  protestants,  especially  at  a  distance.  In  1604,  when 
Gillot  returned  to  Paris  from  Poitou^  he  found  the 
colporteurs  in  the  streets  crying  a  broadside,  '  The  con- 
version of  M.  Casaubon,'  and  people  'talking'  of  nothing 
else.  But  it  was  in  1610  that  the  report  acquired  fresh 
consistency.  Casaubon  had  recently  received  a  severe 
injury,  as  he  conceived,  at  the  hands  of  the  authorities  of 
Geneva.  He  did  not  scruple  to  go  about  using  strong 
language  in  condemnation  of  their  behaviour  to  him.  He 
was  closeted,  day  after  day,  with  cardinal  du  Perron. 
Offers  of  promotion  were  made  him.  In  his  disputes 
with  the  cardinal  he  gave  up  much  of  the  ground  which 
the  calvinist  polemics  were  accustomed  to  maintain ;  and 
it  was  becoming  known  that  he  disapproved  the  neglect  or 
contempt  of  christian  antiquity  which  the  calvinist  doctors 
professed.  Especially  on  the  eucharist,  he  did  not  con- 
ceal that  the  doctrine  of  the  catholics  was  nearer,  than  that 
of  the  calvinist  churches,  to  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
opinion  of  the  ancient  church.  We  find  him  admitting  to 
his  friends  that  'there  were  many  weak  points  in  the 
protestant  system ; '  that  the  writings  of  the  fathers  were 
often  '  strongly  forced  to  get  from  them  a  sense  favourable 

'  Ep.  franj.,  p.  419. 

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320  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

to  the  protestant  view ; '  that  Du  MouHn's  position  that, 
'  Scripture  is  so  plain  that  it  needs  no  interpreter,'  is 
false  and  dangerous.  We  can  imagine  that  his  appear- 
ances at  the  Temple  of  Charenton,  often  far  between, 
were  narrowly  watched,  and  what  a  scandal  must  have 
been  created,  when  the  man,  who  a  few  years  before 
thought  it  a  sin  to  be  present  at  mass,  now  heard  (on 
passion  Sunday  1610)  a  papist  preach,  and  could  approve 
much — not  by  any  means  all — he  said. 

The  ground  now  taken  up  by  Casaubon  was,  in  reality, 
much  firmer  than  that  he  had  occupied  before,  inasmuch 
as  it  was  one  of  knowledge.  Some  few  of  the  best  men 
of  the  party  fully  understood  this,  e.  g.  Du  Plessis 
Mornay  writes'  to  Erpenius,  January,  1611,  '1  have 
never,  as  you  know,  believed  that  he  would  draw  near  to 
Rome.'  But  the  calvinist  pubhc  could  not  know  this; 
what  they  did  know  was,  that  he  no  longer  shared  all 
their  ideas  and  sentiments.  This  was  quite  enough  to 
make  him  an  object  of  suspicion,  at  least,  to  his  own 
party,  a  party  heated  by  a  sense  of  defeat,  and  kept  in 
a  perpetual  state  of  nervous  apprehension  by  continued 
injustice  and  encroachment.  The  eyes  of  all  the  reformed 
congregations  throughout  France  were  on  Casaubon ; 
they  were  watching  his  every  movement  with  disquietude, 
and  were  agitated  with  reports  of  his  backsliding. 

It  would  have  calmed  their  apprehensions  if  the  pastors 
of  his  own  church,  the  church  of  Paris,  could  have  given 
him  a  certificate  of  orthodoxy.  But  unfortunately  the 
leading  minister  at  this  period,  Pierre  Du  Moulin,  had 
grievances  of  his  own  against  this  illustrious  member  of 
his  flock,  whose  reputation  threw  his  own  into  the  shade. 
Du  Moulin  was  a  zealous  religionist,  who  had  given  up 
a  secure  and  honourable  position  at  Leyden,  for  the 
illrewarded  and  battered  life  of  minister  in  his  native 
country.     Fond  of  dispute,  and  vain  of  his  powers,  he 

'  Mem.  et  corresp.  de  Duplessis-Mornay,  ii.  143. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  221 

spent  his  life  in  discussion  and  controversies,  or  in  v^^riting 
attacks  and  answers.  A  man  who  maintained  so  much, 
and  so  dogmatically,  was  naturally  obliged  to  be  content 
sometimes  with  weak,  sometimes  with  false,  arguments. 
Casaubon,  who  had  to  hear  his  learned  displays  before  his 
wondering  and  obedient  flock  at  Charenton,  could  not  help 
at  times  throwing  out  hints  of  the  insufficiency  of  his  glib 
references  to  the  fathers,  or  regrets  at  the  levity  with 
which  christian  antiquity  was  set  aside.  He  read  Du 
Moulin's  pamphlets,  and  on  the  margin  of  one  of  these,  the 
'  Defence  of  King  James'  confession  of  faith,'  had  marked 
a  few  of  the  writer's  errors.  This  copy  had  been  seen  by 
some  common  friends,  and  Du  Moulin  called  on  Casaubon 
and  insisted  on  having  it.  Casaubon  gave  it  up,  begging 
him  to  take  his  notes  in  good  part.  This  was  just  before 
Casaubon's  departure  from  Paris,  but  it  was  the  climax  of 
a  condition  of  distant  relations  between  the  straying 
sheep  and  his  spiritual  shepherd.  That  Casaubon  had 
not  the  least  thought  of  quitting  the  communion  of  his 
church  because  the  minister  who  preached  to  him  was 
one  of  the  half-learned,  is  evident  from  his  whole  mental 
attitude  at  this  time.  One  passage  of  the  diary  may  be 
quoted  which  bears  on  this  subject.  He  enters,  September 
5,  1610 :  '  Communicated,  and  heard  the  learned  sermon  of 
Du  Moulin.  I  cannot  indeed  deny  that  the  ancients 
thought  very  differently  of  this  sacred  mystery,  and 
administered  it  otherwise.  I  could  wish  that  we  had  not 
departed  so  far  from  either  their  faith  or  their  ritual.  But 
inasmuch  as  neither  that  faith  nor  that  ritual  rests  upon 
the  explicit  word  of  God,  and  I  am  but  a  private  individual 
whose  duty  it  is  to  follow,  and  not  to  lead  in  the  church,  I 
have  no  just  ground  for  making  any  change  myself;  least 
of  all  so  at  a  time  when  every  effort  is  being  made  to 
establish  all  the  superstitious  figments  which  ages  have 
accumulated.* 
To  be  looked  on  coldly  by  the  calvinistic  Du  MouUn 

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2%%  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

was  enough,  to  increase  the  suspicions  afloat  of  Casaubon's 
unsoundness  in  the  reformed  faith.  He  added  to  this 
another  error,  that  of  being  in  friendly  relations  with  theo- 
logians of  a  freer  cast  of  doctrine.  Neither  Daniel 
Tilenus  nor  John  Uytenbogaert  could  be  accused  of 
inclining  to  popery ;  but  their  sentiments  were  felt  to  be 
not  altogether  those  of  the  old-fashioned  calvinistic  school. 
The  new  Arminian  protestantism,  which  was  in  the  next 
twenty  years  to  play  such  a  part  in  Holland  and  England, 
had  not  been  taken  up  in  France,  where  the  reformed 
churches  were  too  severely  pressed  upon  by  the  cathoHcs. 
But  it  had  been  heard  of,  and  Uytenbogaert  was  already 
(1610)  in  ill  odour  with  orthodox  calvinists^  With 
Uytenbogaert  Casaubon  only  became  acquainted  in  the 
last  year  of  his  Paris  residence,  when  he  attended  the 
embassy  which  came  in  the  spring  of  1610  from  the  States 
General  to  Henri  iv.  Casaubon  heard  the  remonstrant 
champion  preach,  with  approbation  ^.  They  had  together 
a  long  conference  on  theological  topics.  Of  this  confer- 
ence no  mention  is  found  in  the  diary.  But  notes  of  it 
were  taken  by  Uytenbogaert  at  the  time,  and  though  it 
must  be  read  with  the  latitude  required  as  conversation 
reported  from  memory,  it  is  valuable  evidence  of  Casau- 
bon's sentiments  at  the  period  (1610).  It  is  therefore 
given  entire  (from  Epp.  ecclesiasticae  (1704),  p.  250). 

'  Cas.  Je  suis  fils  d'un  ministre.  Les  ministres  point  a 
leur  aise  pour  maintenant. 

Uyt.     II  cuidoit  estre  brusle  a  Bourdeaux. 

Cas.  Dieu  a  voulu  que  je  viensse  icy,  depuis  ceux  de 
Geneve  m'ont  fait  la  plus  grande  iniquite  du  monde.  Les 
papistes  pensoyent  a  cette  occasion  se  prevaloir  de  moy ; 
me  solliciterent  fort,  meme  le  roy.  Je  luy  dis  que  je  le 
suppliois  ne  me  faire  rien  faire  contre  ma  conscience ;  qu'il 

'  Daersen  writes  to  Uytenbogaert,  in  1610,''  epp.  eccles.  p.  345  :  '  Vostre  nom 
n'est  pas  pen  descri^  en  plusieurs  endroits  de  ce  royaume  ...  la  France  qui 
est  la  plus  inquiete  en  pareilles  mati^res  ..."  ^  Ephem.  p.  736. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  333 

en  feroit  un  hypocrite.  II  dit  qu'il  ne  voulust  pas  que  je 
changeasse  de  religion,  mais  que  je  conservasse.  Depuis 
je  suis  ete  fort  attaque,  nommement  de  M.  Du  Perron,  qui 
a  la  verite  est  fulmen  hominis  ;  car  comme  je  suis  biblio- 
thdcaire  du  roy,  quand  il  vient  en  la  bibliothfeque,  les  occa- 
sions ne  luy  manquent  point.  J'ay  subsistes  jusques  ores, 
graces  a  Dieu;  mais  il  faut  que  cependant  jevousconfesse 
qu'il  m'a  donne  beaucoup  de  scrupules,  qui  me  restent,  et 
ausquels  je  ne  sfay  pas  bien  respondre  ;  il  me  fasche  de 
rougir.  L'eschappade  que  je  prens  est,  que  je  n'y  puis 
respondre,  mais  que  j'y  penseray. 

Je  confesse  que  je  ne  puis  approuver  le  concile  de 
Trente,  en  ce  qu'il  a  decr^te  touchant  les  livres  apo- 
cryphes ;  c'est  chose  abominable,  car  ce  sont  des  fables ; 
ni  pour  la  translation  latine  ;  c'est  chose  abominable.  La 
tyrannic  aussi  du  pape  est  intolerable.  Et  pour  le  fait  des 
images,  ainsi  comme  cela  maintenant  est  en  usage,  c'est 
un  abus  trop  manifeste,  et  tout  plein  d'autres  choses. 
Mais  il  fault,  monsieur,  que  je  vous  confesse,  qu'il  y  en  a 
d'autres  que  me  mettent  en  peine,  quand  je  considere 
ceste  venerable  antiquite.  Pour  nostre  police  ecclesias- 
tique,  elle  ne  me  semble  pas  accorder  avec  I'antiquite. 

Uyt.     Icy  je  consens. 

Addit.  Que  M.  de  Beze  luy  avoit  dit,  que  M.  Calvin, 
voyant  les  abus  de  I'eglise  Romaine  en  cest  endroit,  avoit 
rade  cela ;  mais  qu'en  effet  M.  Calvin  estoit  evesque  de 
Geneve,  et  que  peu  devant  son  trespas,  il  en  avoit  nomme 
de  Beze,  qui  n'en  voulut  point.  Un  jour  M.  de  Bfeze  avoit 
fait  un  preche  ou  il  avoit  exhorte  le  magistrat  de  son  deb- 
voir  sur  quelque  proems,  affin  que  justice  tint  la  balance 
droite.  Monsieur  de  la  Faye,  recitant  ses  propres  mots, 
en  avoit  preche  contre.  Moy  m'addressant  a  M.  de  Beze, 
qui  en  pleuroit  de  regret,  (c'estoit  une  ame  vrayement 
chrestienne,  qui  me  dit  un  jour  qu'il  avoit  occasion  de  de- 
mander  pardon  a  Dieu  de  ses  peches,  mais  que  jamais  il 
n'en  demanderoit  de  I'ambition ;  vice  auquel  il  estoit  le 

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234 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


moins  addonne)  Je  luy  dis,  que  s'il  avoit  la  police  de  I'an- 
tiquite,  cela  n'adviendroit  pas ;  ce  que  m'advoua.  Je  luy 
demandai,  pourquoy  done  il  avoit  tant  resiste  a  I'Angle- 
terre?  il  ne  respondit  rien.  2.  Nous  n'avons  plus  de 
devotion ;  en  I'acte  meme  de  faire  la  sainte  cene,  comme 
nous  allasmes,  quelque  un  me  demanda,  comment  se  porte 
le  coque  de  vos  poules  d'Inde  ?  se  dire  des  injures. 
3.  Pour  les  malades  porter  la  cene,  cela  est  dans  I'an- 
tiquite.  4.  Pour  le  baptesme,  est  advenu  qu'en  un  temps 
extremement  rude  quelqu'un  portoit  son  enfant  pour  estre 
baptise  a  Charenton,  I'enfant  estant  malade  a  la  mort,  on  ne 
voulut  pas  le  baptiser  devant  le  preche ;  I'enfant  mourut,  le 
pfere  se  revolta.  5.  Pour  le  sacrement,  mesmes  il  est  certain, 
que  I'antiquite  donne  a  entendre,  qu'il  y  a  bien  quelque  autre 
chose.  Plessis  beaucoup  de  faussetez.  Moulin  aussi  au  3 
chap,  de  S.  Denis  tt/jos  <^opavTov  b&pov,  ■npoa-^opav  Tov  bdpov  ^. 
6.  Pour  la  predestination,  il  est  mal  aise  de  ne  tirer  la  con- 
sequence, Deus  est  author  mali.  7.  Pour  le  liberal  arbitre, 
M.  Calvin  fait  dire  a  S.  Augustin,  ce  qu'il  ne  dit  pas.  8. 
Pour  les  bonnes  oeuvres,  il  y  a  quelque  autre  chose  qu'on 
ne  dit;  pour  le  moins,  il  les  faudroit  plus  prescher;  M. 
Perrot  disoit  un  fois  a  Geneve,  qu'on  avoit  trop  prfiche  la 
justification  par  la  seule  foy ;  il  est  temps  qu'on  parle  des 
oeuvres.  9.  Pour  la  descente  aux  enfers,  M.  Calvin  parle 
trop  cruement.  Je  sqay  que  M.  Calvin  a  este  grand  per- 
sonnage,  mais  ses  disciples  empirent  les  affaires.  II  y  a  un 
vray  Pharisaisme.  M.  Goulart  un  jour  taschoit  de  faire 
jurer  les  Institutions  de  M.  Calvin.  Je  suis  en  la  plus 
grande  peine  du  monde.  D'un  coste  et  d'autre  je  suis 
mal,  non  obstant  qu'il  y  a  des  gens  doctes,  graces  a  Dieu, 
qui  m'aiment.' 

The  rest  of  the  memorandum  is  in  Latin.  Casaubon 
inquires  if  Arminius  had  expressed  himself  dissatisfied 
with  the  current  tenets  of  the  church  to  which  he  be- 
longed ?  Uytenbogaert  answers :  '  He  did  so,  but  his  main 

'  [The  text  is  given  exactly  as  it  stands  in  Uytenbogaert's  letter.] 

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IV.]  PARIS.    1 600-1 6 10.  aa5 

point  was  the  reunion  of  Christendom ;  and  the  basis  he 
projected  was,  the  drawing  a  line  between  fundamentals 
and  non-fundamentals.'  Casaubon  exclaimed,  'O  pious 
intentions ! '  .  .  .  Here  the  conversation  was  interrupted  by 
the  entrance  of  Reygersberg. 

These  notes  bear  internal  evidence  of  their  genuineness. 
The  Arminian  party  valued  them  for  the  sake  of  giving 
their  views  the  authority  of  Casaubon's  name.  We 
cannot  wonder,  if  this  was  the  style  of  his  conversation,  at 
his  becoming  a  scandal  and  stumbhng-block  to  beheving 
calvinists.  They  afford  no  evidence  of  a  disposition  to 
embrace  Catholicism,  while  they  sufficiently  account  for 
the  origin  and  prevalence  of  such  a  rumour. 

Daniel  Tilenus,  professor  of  theology  at  Sedan,  had 
long  been  one  of  his  trusted  correspondents.  It  was  a 
letter  to  Tilenus  which  had  brought  Casaubon  into  trouble 
some  years  before.  In  1602,  he  had  in  few  and  simple 
terms  expressed  his  indignation  at  the  tone  adopted  by 
Canaye  de  Fresne,  who  had  no  sooner  gone  over  than  he 
began  to  indulge  in  abusive  language  of  those  who  did  not 
follow  his  example.  A  copy  of  the  letter  was  shown  to 
Canaye  de  Fresne  at  Venice,  and  seems  to  have  stung  a 
conscience,  not  quite  easy  at  his  act,  to  fury.  He  set  on 
the  catholic  bloodhound,  Scioppius,  and  made  a  formal 
complaint  to  the  king.  This  complaint  could  come  to 
nothing,  as  there  was  really  nothing  to  complain  of.  In 
1610,  Tilenus  is  still  the  person  to  whom  Casaubon  is  able 
best  to  confide  his  misgivings  as  to  the  calvinistic  system, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  reasserts  his  own  steadfastness 
as  against  the  inducements  held  out  to  him  to  desert 
to  Rome.  He  tells  Tilenus  ^  that  it  is  quite  true  that  the 
people  and  government  of  Geneva  have  done  him  a  great 
injury,  but  not  true  that  he  ever  thought  of  abandoning  his 
religious  principles  on  that  account.  '  I  thank  you,'  he 
continues,  '  for  informing  me  that  such  reports  are  current. 

'  Ep.  1023. 

Q 

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%%b  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

But  is  it  possible  that  you  yourself  were  inclined  to  attach 
any  credence  to  them  ?  Have  I  ever  shown  any  particular 
desire  of  wealth  and  honour?  Have  I  not  had  golden 
fortune  knocking  at  my  door,  almost  breaking  it  open,  and 
have  I  not  resisted  the  temptation  ? 

'  How  then,  you  will  ask,  did  a  report  to  this  effect 
originate  ?  Let  me  remind  you  of  the  situation  in  which 
I  have  been  placed.  For  years  past  I  have  scarce  had  a 
day  free  from  contests  with  persons  professing  a  different 
religion.  With  what  freedom,  with  what  zeal.  I  have 
spoken  on  these  occasions,  God  knows.  I  never  invited 
these  conflicts  ;  they  were  always  forced  upon  me.  I  was 
not  a  theologian,  but  being  compelled  to  give  reasons  for 
my  opinions,  I  was  driven  to  suspend  all  other  studies  and 
to  give  myself  up  to  this  one.  I  compared  the  writings  of 
our  friends  and  their  opponents  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
ancient  church.  Among  the  rest  I  read  Bellarmine.  On 
scripture,  tradition,  the  authority  of  the  old  commentators, 
on  the  power  of  the  pope,  on  images,  on  indulgences,  I 
could  by  certain  reasons  demonstrate  all  Bellarmine's 
positions  to  be  false.  But  when  I  come  to  the  chapter  on 
the  sacraments  (though  there  be  also  some  things  which 
can  be  refuted),  it  is  no  less  clear  to  me  that  the  whole  of 
antiquity  with  one  consent  is  on  the  side  of  our  opponents, 
and  that  our  writers  who  have  attempted  to  show  that  the 
fathers  have  held  our  views  have  egregiously  wasted 
their  time.  The  careful  study  of  the  ancients  has  raised 
certain  scruples  in  my  mind.  About  these  I  would  give  a 
kingdom  to  be  able  to  consult  you,  for  all  I  desire  is  to 
learn.  That  I  am  staggered  by  the  consent  of  the  whole 
ancient  and  orthodox  church  I  cannot  conceal.' 

When  things  had  gone  so  far  as  this,  we  must  admit 
that  if  there  was  no  real  foundation,,  there  was  at  least 
some  justification,  for  the  alarms  of  the  protestants  and 
their  jealousy  that  Casaubon  was  about  to  desert  them. 

5.  Other  sorrows  which  attend  our  advancing  years  now 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1610.  327 

began  to  crowd  round  Casaubon.  The  death  of  his 
mother  in  1607  was  in  the  course  of  nature.  She  had 
survived  her  husband  twenty-two  years,  and  her  declining 
age  had  been  sustained  by  the  affection  of  her  illustrious 
son,  who,  poor  as  he  was,  had,  out  of  his  poverty,  minis- 
tered to  her  comfort.  She  had  declined  to  follow  him  to 
Paris,  naturally  preferring  the  climate  of  her  native  south, 
and  a  protestant  neighbourhood.  As  long  as  Casaubon 
resided  at  Geneva  or  MontpeUier,  she  made  frequent  and 
long  visits  to  him.  After  his  removal  to  Paris,  he  visited 
her  as  often  as  he  could ;  the  last  time,  in  1603 ;  visits 
which  Casaubon  could  dwell  upon  after  her  death  ^  as 
consolatory.  He  writes  ^  to  Pierre  Perillau  of  the  incred- 
ible satisfaction  which  he  has  had  in  his  visit  to  his  mother, 
from  which  he  is  just  returned.  '  I  wanted  to  have  located 
her  at  Geneva;  but  she  would  not.  I  have  therefore 
purchased  a  house  for  her  at  Bourdeaux  (in  Dauphine)  and 
have  done  my  possible,  nay,  more,  to  relieve  her  from  all 
apprehension  about  the  future.  Thank  God,  she  is  now 
in  sufficiently  easy  circumstances  for  a  person  who  has  so 
few  wants.' 

In  1602  he  had  lost  the  best  of  his  sisters,  Sara  Cha- 
banes.  One  of  her  sons,  Pierre,  Isaac  had  undertaken  to 
educate  and  provide  for.  Just  as  the  youth  was  beginning 
to  be  very  useful  to  Casaubon,  both  in  his  reading,  and  in  the 
library,  when  he  was  just  of  age,  he  fell  a  victim  to  one  of 
the  voyages  to  Hablon.  He  caught  his  death  in  the  boat  on 
a  bitter  Palm  Sunday,  such  as  Parisians  know  too  well  ^. 

The  heaviest  blow  was  the  loss  of  his  much-cherished 
daughter,  Philippa.  Superior  endowments  of.  mind,  and 
a  generous  elevation  of  character,  had  endeared  this 
daughter  to  the  father  above  all  his  many  children. 
Philippa  was  his  pride  and  his  consolation.  Without 
beauty,  she  had  the  sweet  charm  of  graceful  seriousness, 

'■  Ephem.  558.  ^  Bulletin  de  la  soc.  prot.  2.  290. 

^  ^  [V.  antea,  p.  130.] 

Q2 

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338  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect: 

or  softened  melancholy,  which  belonged  to  the  huguenot 
women  of  that  generation.  A  presentiment  of  her  early- 
grave  perhaps  hung  about  herself,  which  her  deHcacy  of 
constitution,  and  frequent  ailments,  too  surely  predicted  to 
the  apprehensive  mind  of  the  fond  father. 

Philippa  had  been  much  noticed  by  the  family  of  the 
English  ambassador,  Carew.  Lady  Carew  (she  was  a 
Godolphin)  took  such  a  liking  to  her  that  she  offered  to 
take  her  into  her  house  as  companion.  The  other  advant- 
ages were  great,  but  the  opportunity  of  learning  the  lan- 
guage was  what  chiefly  attracted  Philippa,  whose  young  life 
was  clouded  with  dread  of  a  time  when  they  might  all  have 
to  fly  for  life,  and  who  looked  to  England  as  the  place  of 
refuge.  The  parents,  though  loth  to  part  with  their  darling, 
thought  they  ought  not  to  reject  such  an  introduction  for 
her.  In  a  few  months  she  became  an  established  favourite 
in  the  household  of  the  Carews,  who  told  the  parents  they 
ought  to  think  themselves  happy  indeed  in  such  a  child. 
The  flower  was  nipt  in  the  bud  by  a  fever  which  carried 
her  off,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  set.  ig.  The  entry  of  the 
interment  in  the  cemetery  of  the  faubourg  S.  Germain  is 
dated  February  26,  1608^.  Lady  Carew  joined  her  tears 
with  those  of  Madame  Casaubon  ^-  For  Isaac  all  attempts 
to  return  to  his  books  were  for  some  time  fruitless. 

The  blow  was  the  more  severe,  as  none  of  the  other 
children  seemed  likely  to  replace  the  lost  one,  but  were 
rather  a  source  of  discomfort.  John,  the  eldest,  early  de- 
veloped a  crooked  disposition.  We  find  him'^,  ast.  18, 
thieving  from  his  parents'  poor  purse  nine  crowns,  and 
otherwise  distressing  them  by  lending  a  favourable  ear  to 
the  professional  convertisseurs.  Twelve  months  after- 
wards, set.  19,  he  went  over,  as  has  been  already  related. 
It  was  in  great  measure  upon  the  lies  set  afloat  by  this 

^  Bulletin  de  la  soc.  prot.  12.  276.  Reg.  de  daces,  26  ftvr.  1608 ;   '  Philippe 
Casaubon,  fille  de  M.  Casaubon,  professeur  du  roy,  et  garde  de  sa  bibliotheque.' 
^  Ephem.  589  ;  '  Suas  nostris  lacrimas  adjungens.'  ^  Ephem.  625. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  239 

young  rogue  among  his  new  associates  that  the  reports 
were  founded  of  Isaac's  apostacy. 

Of  his  children  in  general  the  diary  says^,  in  1607, 
'  They  are  almost  all  great  troubles  to  me,  some  of  them 
because  they  are  always  ill,  some  because  they  make  no 
progress  either  in  virtue  or  in  letters.'  He  is  in  fear  that 
more  of  them  will  follow  John's  example  ^.  This  grievous 
disappointment  was  not  to  extend  to  Meric.  Meric,  at 
the  date  when  this  wail  was  wrung  from  the  desponding 
father,  was  only  seven.  In  the  following  year,  aet.  8, 
he  was  sent  to  school  at  Sedan,  under  Samuel  Neran. 
Here  he  remained  till  1611,  when  he  rejoined  his  father  in 
England.  Isaac  lived  to  see  Meric  confirmed,  but  not 
to  see  developed  in  him  those  learned  tastes  and  accom- 
plishments which  might  have  consoled  the  father  for 
the  degeneracy  of  the  rest  of  the  children.  The  only 
letter  which  Meric  preserved  of  those  written  to  him 
in  his  school-days,  is  so  characteristic  of  the  writer  that  it 
is  thought  right  to  give  it.  It  is  dated  Paris,  September 
18,  i6og. 

'  Meric,  I  am  glad  that  you  write  to  me  tolerably  often, 
and  shall  be  more  so  if  you  do  so  oftener.  I  shall, 
however,  expect  each  letter  to  show  some  progress  since 
the  one  which  preceded  it.  I  see  that  you  are  beginning 
to  compose  latin  themes,  but  not  without  bad  mistakes. 
Learn  something  every  day.  Exercise  your  memory 
diligently.  If  Terence  is  one  of  the  books  you  read  at 
school,  I  desire  that  you  will  commit  it  to  memory  from 
beginning  to  end.  No  one  will  ever  speak  latin  well  who 
has  not  thumbed  Terence.  Write  me  word  if  you  read 
Terence,  and  what  it  is  you  read  at  school.  Above  all,  be 
good,  fear  God,  pray  for  father,  mother,  brothers,  and 
sisters.  Honour  your  teachers,  and  be  obedient  to  them. 
Be  careful  not  to  waste  time.  If  you  do  this,  God  will 
bless  your  studies.     I  have  written  to  the  master,  and 

1  Ephem.  p.  546.  '  Ephem.  p.  764. 

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23° 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


to  the  person  with  whom  you  board,  not  to  let  you  want 
for  anything.  Your  mother  sends  her  remembrances, 
and  desires  you  will,  from  her;  kiss  Mrs.  Capell's  hands, 
as  I  do  also.  Your  father,  Is.  Casaubon.  Remember  me 
to  the  Hotomans.' 

In  the  same  year  that  his  mother  died,  1607,  his 
surviving  sister,  Anna,  left  a  widow  by  the  death  of  her 
husband,  Jean  Rigot  \  came  to  Paris.  Isaac  had  portioned 
her,  giving  her,  with  Madame  Casaubon's  consent,  500 
crowns,  their  joint  savings  intended  for  Philippa.  Her 
husband's  brothers,  the  Rigots,  had  some  claim  upon  Jean, 
which,  after  a  litigation  of  twelve  years,  resulted  in  a 
decision  adverse  to  Anna.  She  was  left  penniless,  and 
Isaac,  who  had  maintained  her  as  well  as  his  mother,  now 
took  her  to  live  with  him.  Her  temper  soon  proved  the 
bane  of  his  household  2.  She  and  Madame  Casaubon 
could  not  agree,  '  fire  and  water  sooner,'  says  the  diary  ^- 
It  went  on  from  bad  to  worse.  She  soon  turned  on  Isaac, 
reproaching  him  with  doing  no  more  for  her.  At  last  she 
became  so  unreasonable  that  it  was  doubtful  if  she  were  in 
her  right  mind.  Yet  the  long-suffering  man  continued  to 
keep  this  * '  monstrum  mulieris '  in  his  household.  Well 
might  he  ask  Rutgers  °,  who  offered  him  hospitality, 
'  Are  you  a  Crassus  that  you  can  lodge  an  army  ?  Were 
I  really  to  appear  with  my  whole  establishment,  you 
would  be  alarmed.' 

6.  Other  troubles  originated  with  the  family  of  his  wife. 
Paul  Estienne,  Madame  Casaubon's  brother,  though 
himself  a  member  of  the  council  of  200  at  Geneva,  was 
somehow  compromised  in  the  treasonable  practices  of  the 
syndic  Blondel.  Blondel  was  executed  in  September 
1606.  Paul,  however,  who  was  perhaps  guilty  of  nothing 
more  heinous  than  the  desire  to  save  Blondel,  got  off  for 

'  [See  antea,  p.  7.] 

^  Ephem.  p.  629  :  '  Nube  tristissima  banc  domum  obfuscavit.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  517.  *  Ephem.  p.  672.  =  Ep.  723. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610. 


231 


a  few  weeks'  imprisonment.  He  was  released  on  engaging 
to  appear  whenever  called  upon.  He  had  before  this 
neglected  his  business  ^  and  in  1607  he  made  his  appear- 
ance in  Paris  in  a  state  of  penury.  The  business  which 
brought  him  was  the  affair  of  the  greek  matrixes  before 
spoken  of  It  would  seem  that  sir  Henry  Savile  was 
desirous  of  employing  the  royal  type  in  his  edition  of 
S.  Chrysostom,  and  for  this  purpose  would  have  been 
willing  to  purchase  the  set  of  matrixes  which  were  at 
Geneva.  In  this  negotiation  Savile  sought  the  mediation 
of  Casaubon,  who  had  supplied  him  with  collations  from 
the  royal  library,  and  lodged  506  crowns  in  the  hands 
of  the  English  ambassador  at  Paris.  Casaubon,  or  his 
Wife,  as  co-heir  of  Henri  Estienne,  was  joint  owner  of  the 
matrixes.  But  as  Henri,  in  his  lifetime,  had  been  com- 
pelled to  mortgage  this  property,  they  must  be  disengaged 
before  they  could  be  sold.  Isaac  Casaubon,  besides 
finding  Paul  in  a  supply  of  cash  for  his  immediate 
necessities,  became  surety  for  200  crowns,  and  sent  him 
back  to  Geneva,  to  effect  the  object.  But  when  it  became 
known  that  the  matrixes  were  about  to  be  sold  to  England, 
the  authorities  of  Geneva  interfered.  They  claimed  them 
as  part  of  the  establishment  of  Robert  Estienne,  and  as  irre- 
movable from  Geneva  under  his  will  ^-  At  the  same  time 
the  Genevan  courts  of  law  decided,  on  the  suit  of  Nicolas 
Leclerc,  the  mortgagee,  in  his  favour,  to  the  effect  that  he 
should  be  repaid  the  amount  of  his  advance,  400  crowns, 
out  of  the  estate  of  Henri  Estienne.  As  Paul  Estienne 
had  not  a  single  crown  which  he  could  call  his  own,  this 
was  to  decide  that  Isaac  Casaubon  should  pay  his  father- 
in-law's  debts,  and  yet  not  get  possession  of  the  valuable 

'  Ep.  60S  ■  '  Fatal!  circa  rem  familiarem  negligentia.' 

^  The  will  of  Robert  Estienne  is  printed  from  the  archives  of  Geneva  in 
R^nouard,  Annales  des  Estienne,  ed.  2».  p.  578.  The  affairs  of  the  Estienne 
are  still  involved  in  some  obscurity.  I  have  given  the  best  account  I  can  of 
Casaubon's  implication  in  the  business,  but  am  in  some  doubt  as  to  parts  of  my 
statement. 

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23a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

property  pledged  to  meet  them.  He  had  to  satisfy  Henri 
Estienne's  creditors  out  of  his  own  purse.  No  wonder 
that  his  denunciations  were  passionate  and  bitter.  Besides 
the  heavy  pecuniary  loss,  he  was  irritated  by  the  injustice, 
and  by  the  quarter  from  which  it  proceeded,  'his  own 
Geneva,  for  which  he  would  readily  have  laid  down  his 
life.'  Worse  still,  he  met  with  no  sympathy  from  his 
Genevese  friends.  In  all  the  city,  Diodati,  the  professor 
of  Hebrew,  was  the  only  person  who  offered  condolence. 
All  Geneva  approved  the  sentence.  Du  Laurens,  the 
scholarch,  Casaubon's  successor  as  classical  professor,  in 
writing  to  the  victim  himself^,  could  not  conceal  his 
delight.  Lect,  his  own  advocate,  and  legal  adviser  in  the 
business,  who  did  not  defend  the  decision,  hinted  that 
it  was  hardly  rational  to  ascribe  a  decision  of  a  court  of 
law  to  the  rapacity  of  the  pastors  and  professors,  as 
Casaubon  did.  The  letter  of  remonstrance^  written  by 
Simon  Goulart,  in  the  name  of  the  '  ccetus  pastorum,'  and 
intended  to  pacify  Casaubon,  was  little  adapted  to  do  so, 
being  written  in  a  canting  tone,  alleging  their  well  known 
god-fearing  character  as  proof  that  they  could  not  have 
wronged  him. 

7.  As  there  are  men  who  continually  grow  richer 
without  effort,  so  there  are  others  who  are  continually 
impoverished  without  any  fault  of  their  own.  Capital, 
small  or  large,  requires  an  attentive  eye  to  nurse  it,  and 
the  scholar's  attention  is  necessarily  elsewhere.  Isaac 
Casaubon  seems  never  to  touch  money  but  to  lose  it.  He 
lost  for  himself,  he  lost  for  his  sister,  he  had  lost  before 
for  his  mother.  His  own  little  patrimony  at  Bourdeaux, 
his  wife's  dower  at  Geneva,  his  sister's  portion,  all  disap- 
peared, not  spent,  but  lost.  Biographers  rap  out  the  con- 
secrated phrases  about  '  bearing  losses  with  philosophy.' 
Philosophy  teaches  the  contrary  lesson  ;  it  teaches  the  all- 
importance  of  money,  as  the  condition  of  moral  activity. 

'  Ep.  600.  2  Burney  mss.  367. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610,  233 

Casaubon's  financial  calamity  dwelt  on  his  mind  and 
interfered  seriously  with  his  reading:  ^'For  some  months 
past  I  have  lost  that  spring  of  mind  which  used  to  bear 
me  up,  amid  my  studies.' 

Casaubon's  financial  grievances  are  a  pervading  topic  of 
his  diary  and  letters,  in  which  they  occupy  a  more  prom- 
inent place  than  will  be  approved  by  those  who  think  that 
scholars  ought  to  affect  to  live  on  greek  roots.  This 
biography  is  not  intended  as  an  apology,  but  as  a  portrait, 
and  therefore  must  present  what  it  fijids.  But  indeed  no 
apology  is  needed.  If  it  be  to  a  man's  credit  to  be  un- 
worldly, Casaubon  was  eminently  unworldly.  His  money 
troubles  are  the  troubles  of  a  man  who  could  neither  get 
it  nor  keep  it,  a  man  for  whom  the  world  is  too  keen  and 
sharp,  who  is  conscious  that  he  is  surrounded  by  money- 
getting  creatures  more  able  than  himself.  Nor  does  he, 
any  more  than  any  other  philosopher,  desire  wealth  apart 
from  its  uses.  Through  all  his  moanings  and  wailings,  his 
outcries,  and  wringing  of  hands,  the  one  object  of  his 
existence  is  perceptibly  in  his  thoughts,  leisure  and  books 
— books  and  leisure  to  read  them, — the  scholar's  life — 
income  only  as  its  means  and  guarantee. 

He  does  not  complain  of  the  insufficiency  of  his  salary. 
Indeed  his  salary  and  pension  together  were  of  larger 
amount  than  the  average  of  academical  or  scholastic 
incomes  at  the  time.  Besides  this  there  come  occasional 
presents,  not  often  such  munificent  gifts  as  those  of  the 
king  and  Harlay.  Then  he  got  something,  small — but 
something,  for  his  books  from  the  booksellers,  something 
also  from  dedicatees  for  dedications.  Chouet,  the  Genevan 
bookseller,  was  to  give  him  a  half  escu  per  sheet  for 
revising  his  Suetonius,  and  something  besides — '  quantum 
sequum  erit' — for  new  matter  ^  He  takes  boarders  occa- 
sionally into  his  house,  but  only  the  sons  of  great  people, 

'  Ep.  587  :  '  Ab  aliquot  mensibus  alacritatem  illam  prorsus  amisimus,  qusE 
studia  nostra  plurimura  sublevabat.'  "^  Burney  mss.  365.  p.  62. 

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334  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

who  might  be  expected  to  pay,  e.  g.  lord  Herbert  ^  of 
Cherbury,  the  two  sons  of  Calignon,  the  chancellor  of 
Navarre,  and  the  son  of  Sapieha,  chancellor  of  Lithuania. 
And  though  the  rent  of  his  house  in  the  faubourg  S.  Ger- 
main is  uncommonly  high,  it  should  seem  that  Mercier 
des  Bordes  had  some  arrangement  by  which  he  shared  it 
with  him,  as  well  as,  possibly,  provided  his  country  retreat 
at  Grigny.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  scale  of  living, 
and  every  other  expense,  especially  firewood,  was  then,  as 
now,  excessively  high  in  the  capital  as  compared  with  the 
provinces.  At  Montpellier  30  livres  had  been  sufficient  to 
find  him  a  lodging.  In  Paris  he  must  pay  400.  A  parisian 
laquais  would  spurn  the  modest  portion  which  would  be 
accepted  as  suitable  with  a  daughter,  by  a  provincial 
bourgeois.  When  the  city  of  Nimes  offered  Casaubon 
1 800  livres,  they  told  him  ^  that  he  would  find  it  more  at 
Nimes  than  the  larger  salary  he  was  actually  receiving. 

At  one  time  difficulties  experienced  in  the  payment  of 
his  stipend  counted  as  one  of  his  standing  troubles.  The 
aversion  of  Rosny  (Sully)  for  all  pensions  was  proverbial. 
He  justly  dreaded  Henri's  facility  in  granting  orders  on 
the  treasury,  and  resisted  or  evaded  payment  as  long  as  it 
was  possible.  He  had  acquired  the  character,  most 
valuable  to  any  keeper  of  an  exchequer,  of  being  a  dragon 
of  the  public  money.  He  was  the  terror  of  the  holders  of 
orders,  whom  he  snubbed  and  humiliated  even  when 
compelled  to  pay^.  Casaubon  had  at  first  to  run  the 
gauntlet  of  Sully's  antechamber,  to  go  and  wait  hours,  and 
then  be  told  to  come  again  another  day. 

'  March  13,  1601.     This  day  also  wholly  lost.     Went  to 


^  Life  of  Lord  Herbert,  p.  67,  about  1608,  in  company  with  Aurelian 
Townsend :  '  Througli  the  recommendation  of  the  lord  ambassador,  I  was 
received  to  the  house  of  that  incomparable  scholar,  Isaac  Casaubon,  by  whose 
learned  conversation  I  much  benefited  myself.'  Cf.  Ephem.  p.  641:  'Angli 
hodie  nos  adierunt.'  Patrick  Young,  son  of  Sir  Patrick,  was  intended  to  have 
been  sent  to  Casaubon  in  1608.     Smith,  Vita  Junii,  p.  9. 

'^  Ep-  45^'  ^  Lestoile,  Reg.-journal,  p.  531. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1 600-1 610.  235 

Rosny,  who  gave  me  plainly  enough  to  understand  what 
I  may  look  for  at  his  hands.  .  .  De  Thou  and  other  great 
friends  who  really  care  for  my  interest,  have  no  influence 
with  this  barbarous  man.' 

'  December  ig,  1603.  Some  work  early  ;  then  to  Rosny, 
but  fruitlessly;  he  was  at  home  and  disengaged,  but  I 
could  not  get  speech  of  him.'  In  October  1604,  Scaliger 
writes  ^  to  him  that  he  is  not  afraid  of  Henri  abandoning 
him;  'more  is  to  be  feared  from  the  dragon  that  guards 
the  golden  fleece,  than  from  your  avowed  enemies.  He  is 
the  only  person  who  can  convince  the  king  that  "plus 
capere  intestina  philologi,  quam  arcam  unius  iropvopoo-Kov." ' 

But  Sully  did  not  take  this  view  of  their  comparative 
claims.  Casaubon's  demands  were  a  bagatelle  by  the  side 
of  the  lavish  extravagance  which  Sully  was  daily  called  on 
to  meet.  To  mistresses  so  many  100,000  livres.  To  the 
great  nobles  so  many  milHons.  Sully  himself  was  on  the 
pension  list  for  20,000  francs.  But  then  king  and  nobles, 
these  were  beings  who  had  a  right  to  existence !  Sully's 
own  account  of  the  matter  was  ^,  '  Henri  invited  Casaubon 
to  come  to  Paris  with  his  family,  and  assigned  him  a  pen- 
sion which  permitted  him  to  live  as  becomes  a  man  of  that 
sort,  who  is  not  called  to  govern  the  state.'  Besides  the 
just  dislike  of  'mere  nothings  'which  the  true  pursekeeper 
has.  Sully  wanted  to  see  Casaubon  '  do  something  for  his 
money,'  and  told  him  so  ^ :  '  Vous  coutez  trop  au  roi, 
monsieur ;  vous  avez  plus  que  deux  bons  capitaines ;  et 
vous  ne  servez  de  rien! 

Even  the  professors  of  the  college  royal  could  not  get 
their  nominal  salaries  paid.  Etienne  Hubert,  for  example, 
an  intimate  friend  of  Casaubon,  and  a  man  of  real  merit, 
was  regius  reader  of  Arabic.  He  had  been  employed  by 
the  government  in  negotiations  with  the  Algerines,  and 
sent  out  to  Morocco.    On  his  return  he  was  rewarded  with 

'  Seal.  epp.  p.  271.  ^  CEcon.  royales. 

'  Esprit  de  Henri  iv,  p.  104. 

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236  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  chair  of  Arabic.  The  king  gave  the  chair,  but  Sully 
had  to  pay  the  salary,  and  never  did.  For  himself,  Casau- 
bon's  own  personal  favour  with  Henri  got  him  out  of  the 
difficulty.  '  When  you  want  to  be  paid  '^,  you  come  to  me 
and  I  will  give  you  a  password,  which  will  enable  you  to  get 
your  money.  Never  mind  Rosny  ;  it  is  his  share  of  the 
business  to  say  the  disagreeable  things ;  the  saying  the 
pleasant  things  I  keep  for  myself.'  Accordingly,  in  the 
later  years  of  the  Paris  residence  we  find  no  further 
complaints  from  Casaubon  of  non-payment.  What  the 
nature  of  the  password  was  we  are  not  told.  But  what- 
ever it  was,  it  was  good  only  for  Casaubon  himself.  He 
failed  entirely  to  get  the  same  privilege  for  Hubert.  In 
vain  he  used  his  own  small  influence,  and  got  Harlay  to 
promise  to  take  the  matter  up.  Harlay  undertook  to  speak 
to  Sully,  and  said  the  affair  would  soon  be  settled.  It 
never  was  settled,  and  Hubert  was  obliged  to  leave  his 
arabic  studies  and  chair,  and  go  off  to  Orleans,  to  earn  his 
bread  by  the  practice  of  medicine. 

Among  all  the  pensions  ^,  that  to  Casaubon  was  the  only 
outlay  Henri  made  on  literature.  And  the  exception  con- 
firms the  rule.  Even  in  this  unique  2000  livres,  literature 
had  the  least  share.  The  consideration  for  which  it  was 
given  was  only  partly  Casaubon's  services  as  librarian  ;  it 
was  much  more  the  anticipated  conversion.  To  the  last 
Henri  continued  to  expect  the  recantation,  to  urge  it 
through  Du  Perron,  and  to  refuse  Casaubon's  repeated 
request  ^  to  be  dismissed.  These  applications  were  made 
through  Villeroy*,  through  Sully  himself,  nothing  loth. 


'  I  quote  these  words  of  the  king  from  '  L' esprit  de  Henri  iv,'  p.  104,  which 
gives,  as  its  authority,  '  manuscrit  in  4°.' 

^  Henri  iv.  invited  Malherbe  to  court,  telling  him  '  qu'il  lui  ferait  du  bien.' 
He  never  did  anything.  It  was  not  till  after  Henri's  death  that  the  poet 
obtained  a  pension  of  1500  livres  from  the  government  of  the  queen  regent. 

^  Exercc.  in  Baron,  p.  42. 

'  Ep-  557  :  '  Que  sa  Majestd  me  permette  me  retirer  ailleurs,  sit6t  que  mon 
grand  ouvrage  de  Polybe     .     .     .     sera  achevg.'     Cas,  to  Villeroy,  June,  1607. 


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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  237 

Sully  was  mollified,  and  permitted  himself  to  be  gracious 
to  Casaubon  when  he  found  that  his  pensioner,  instead  of 
hanging  on  about  the  court  for  what  he  could  get,  wanted 
much  more  to  be  gone  elsewhere.  It  was  Henri's  per- 
sonal good  will  that  chained  Casaubon  so  long  in  the 
uncongenial  life  of  the  intensely  catholic  capital.  It  would 
perhaps  be  unjust  not  to  allow  that  some  humane  feeling 
mingled  with  the  egotistic  monarch's  arriere  pensee.  He 
treated  his  scholar,  whenever  he  saw  him,  with  so  much 
bonhommie,  that  we  cannot  but  wish  that  he  had  been 
able  to  appreciate  him.  We  feel  disposed  to  say  with 
Scipio  Gentilis  ^, '  One  thing  only  is  wanting  in  your  great 
king  to  make  him  perfect,  viz.  that  he  does  not  sufficiently 
value  your  learning.  O  !  if  he  only  knew  latin  to  be  able 
to  do  so!'  Casaubon  well  understood  that  nothing  but 
Henri's  personal  favour  protected  him.  The  thought 
could  not  but  often  occur  :  '  If  anything  should  happen  to 
— it  was  too  dreadful !  If  that  thread  should  break,  what 
would  become,  not  merely  of  Casaubon,  but  of  the  whole 
huguenot  population  of  Paris ! ' 

8.  Death  began,  as  time  went  on,  to  be  busy  among  his 
friends.  In  1606  died  his  friend  and  patron  Calignon, 
chancellor  of  Navarre,  one  of  the  few  great  men  who 
remained  stanch  huguenots,  and  yet  retained  some 
influence  at  court.  In  1607  he  lost  Lefebre,  his  trusted 
physician,  who  best  knew  his  constitution^-  Lefebre 
had  attained  the  age  of  seventy-two,  but  Hadrian  Willems 
of  Flushing  was  cut  off  in  the  flower  of  youth.  In  him 
Casaubon  had  just  found,  what  he  had  long  sought  in 
vain,  a  young  and  eager  disciple,  athirst  for.  knowledge, 
and  giving  his  whole  soul  to  acquiring  it.     He  had  come 

^  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  137  :  '  Ad  summum  et  perfectissiraum  omnium  virtutum 
culmen  una  res  deesse  magno  regi  videtur,  quod  virtutem  et  eruditionem  tuam 
non  satis  intelligat,  intelligeret  autem  satis,  si  latine  modo  sciret.'  Scipio 
Gentilis  to  Cas.  1609. 

^  Ephem.  p.  475  :  '  Sapientissimus  medicus  atque  exercitatissimus  Faber  sic 
tractandas  vires  hujus  infirmi  corpusculi  judicat.' 

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238  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

with  an  introduction  from  Scaliger,  and  had  at  once  re- 
commended himself  to  Casaubon  by  his  simple  modest 
manners,  and  ardour  of  study.  He  was  a  student  of  medi- 
cine, and  was  eager  to  penetrate  the  great  secret  of  nature. 
Such  means  of  observation  as  the  medical  school  of  Paris 
afforded  he  used  industriously,  but  thought,  as  was  com- 
monly thought  then,  that  more  might  be  learned  from  the 
arabian  writers.  Though  every  part  of  knowledge  had 
attractions  for  his  ample  curiosity,  arable  was  the  immedi- 
ate point  of  contact  between  Hadrian  and  Casaubon. 
Hadrian  had  come  to  Paris  more  for  the  sake  of  being 
near  Casaubon  than  for  the  schools  ^.  Isaac  soon  found 
that  whatever  might  be  his  own  superiority  in  greek,  in 
arabic  the  young  Fleming  was  qualified  to  be  his  teacher. 
'  He  had  thumbed  Avicenna  by  constant  use  ;  the  Koran 
was  so  familiar  to  him,  that  after  you,'  Casaubon  writes  to 
Scaliger^,  'I  suppose  no  European  would  come  near  him.' 
He  was  preparing  to  go  in  the  suite  of  the  french  ambas- 
sador to  Constantinople,  when  he  was  seized  with  inflam- 
mation of  the  bowels,  and  died  after  a  few  days'  illness. 
His  projects  and  accomplishments  vanished  into  air!  and 
Casaubon's  arabic  reading  was  discontinued  when  the 
instructor  and  the  stimulus  were  withdrawn  ^.  Charles 
Labbe,  though  intimate,  and  even  useful,  never  came  into 
the  place  which  Hadrian's  death  left  vacant. 

The  death  which  searched  Casaubon  most  deeply  was 
that  of  Scaliger.  Had  he  lost,  in  losing  him,  only  the 
patron  of  his  fame  and  fortunes,  the  true  and  sympathetic 
friend  to  whom  he  told  the  secret  troubles  of  his  life,  the 
loss  would  have  been  heavy,  and  at  fifty  irreplaceable. 
But  Scaliger  was,  besides  this,  the  oracle  who  could 
resolve  his  learned  difficulties,  the  only  reader  who  could 
appreciate   his  classical  work*.     For  whom  should  he 

1  Seal.  epp.  p.  185  :  '  Non  urbis  celebritas,  sed  eximia  eruditio  tua  evocavit.' 
^  Ep.  402.  "  Ep.  548. 

'  To  appreciate  Casaubon's  books  was  claimed  by  Scaliger  as  his  peculiar 
privilege.     Seal,  opuscula,  p.  520.  epp.  p.  301.  . 

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IV.]  PARIS.     x6oo-i6io.  239 

write,  now  Scaliger  was  not  there  to  read  ?  Others  might 
applaud,  but  it  was  with  a  purbhnd  admiration.  The  death 
of  Scahger  was  Hke  the  setting  of  the  sun.  It  was  now,  not 
dark,  in  the  republic  of  letters,  but  starlight  only.  To  the  last 
he  saw  and  read  everything  that  came  out,  with  his  facul- 
ties and  his  memory  perfect,  and  appraised  it  at  its  value. 
In  his  correspondence  with  Casaubon  his  amiable  quaUties, 
often  obscured  by  his  contact  with  a  malignant  and  un- 
scrupulous party,  come  into  full  evidence.  Their  inter- 
course had  been  conducted  wholly  by  letter.  They  never 
met.  Scaliger  left  France  for  Holland  in  1593,  before 
Casaubon  quitted  Geneva;  and  Casaubon,  though  often 
scheming  a  visit  to  Leyden,  had  never  found  it  possible  to 
put  the  design  into  execution.  Yet  a  fast  and  intimate 
friendship  had  grown  up  between  them.  There  is, 
perhaps,  hardly  another  instance  on  record  of  such  a 
perfect  intimacy  created  and  maintained  without  personal 
intercourse.  Something  may  have  been  due  to  the  medi- 
ation of  friends,  especially  Richard  Thomson  and  young 
Dousa,  towards  exciting  in  Scaliger  affection  for  the  man, 
whose  learning  he  had  begun  to  respect  from  his  books. 
It  is  the  charm  of  their  mutual  correspondence,  which  we 
have  still  complete  on  both  sides,  that  in  it  we  can  trace, 
from  its  first  germ,  the  formation,  growth,  and  development 
of  this  perfect  friendship,  which,  from  first  to  last,  was 
never  once  clouded  by  a  moment's  suspicion,  disagree- 
ment, or  misunderstanding. 

Casaubon  introduced  himself  to  Scaliger  by  an  epistle, 
simply  asking  for  his  acquaintance, — an  epistle  such  as  he 
addressed  to  many  other  men  of  learning.  The  request 
was  prompted  by  the  yearning  for  sympathy,  which  every 
engrossing  study  creates, — a  yearning  which  found  no 
response  in  theological  Geneva.  Nearly  twenty  years 
younger  than  Scaliger,  and  still  unknown,  Casaubon 
ventured  to  approach  the  prince  of  letters,  timidly,  and  on 
his  knees,  with  homage,  which  would  seem  overacted, 

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240  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

only  that  it  is  not  acting  at  all.  Scaliger,  at  first  somewhat 
condescending  and  patronising,  as  Casaubon  grows  bigger 
and  bigger,  gradually  admits  him  to  an  equal  familiarity 
of  address,  conceding  to  him  distinctly  the  superiority 
in  the  matter  of  greek  reading.  This  is  done  without 
affectation,  without  mortification,  rather  with  undisguised 
satisfaction  in  the  discovery.  From  the  moment  he  saw 
the  Suetonius  (1595)  he  wished  to  get  him  called  to  Leyden, 
and  endeavoured  it,  but  in  vain  ^.  After  Casaubon  was 
settled  in  Paris,  Scaliger  was  steady  in  advising  him  to 
stay,  where  he  was  tolerably  well  off,  and  ever  endeavoured 
to  soothe  his  friend's  restless  fears.  But  he  pressed  for 
the  visit  which  was  ever  promised.  ^ '  Should  it  please 
the  Almighty  Father  to  prolong  my  days  till  the  spring, 
that  I  might  receive  you  here,  I  should  indeed  be  happy 
in  seeing  that  which  many  things  forbade  me  ever  to 
hope.  If  you  do  think  of  coming,  take  my  advice,  and 
come  in  May — not  earlier.  In  this  climate,  winter  leaves 
its  mark  even  so  late;  no  trace  of  spring  is  visible  till 
Taurus  is  pretty  well  set.  But  only  come ;  come  even  in 
midwinter  if  you  choose  to  do  so.  We  will  counteract 
him  by  the  cheerful  fire  which  I  will  keep  in  your  bed- 
chamber, sparely  furnished  maybe,  but  clean ;  for  I  have 
only  to  offer  the  "  concha  saHs  puri,"  and  a  heart  which 
is  devoted  to  you.'  Casaubon  replies^,  'That  he  had 
resolved  not  to  be  a  burden  to  Scaliger  during  his  stay  in 
Leyden,  but  rather  to  go  to  the  inn.  After  such  an  invi- 
tation, however,  he  was  afraid  he  should  not  be  able  to 
resist  the  temptation.'  Though  ScaHger  speaks  of  his 
humble  saltcellar,  the  Heidelberg  bookseller,  CommeHn, 
thought  his  entertainment,  on  his  visit  to  Leyden,  magnifi- 
cent. This  invitation  was  sent  in  1604-5.  Then  the 
visit  was  deferred  from  year  to  year.  In  the  autumn  of 
1608  the  weakness  which  began  to  confine  Scaliger  to  his 
bed  declared  itself,  and  the  visit  never  took  place  at  all. 

1  Seal.  epp.  p.  153.  ^  Seal.  epp.  p.  a68.  ^  Ep.  428. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  341 

Twelve  months  prior  to  his  last  illness,  Scaliger  had 
made  a  will,  and  dividing  a  few  memorials  among  his 
friends,  he  left  Casaubon  a  piece  of  plate  1.  '  Touchant  ce 
peu  que  j'ay  d'or  ou  argent  en  oeuvre,  je  legue  au  Sieur 
Isaac  Casaubon  soubs  maitre  de  la  librairie  du  roi,  une 
coupe  d'argent  doree  avec  son  estuy,  que  les  messieurs 
des  etats  de  Zeelande  m'ont  donne^.'  He  tells  Casaubon 
that  he  had  given  him  something ;  '  I  have  left  trifling 
remembrances  among  my  friends,  proofs  of  affection,  not 
of  wealth.  Enrich  them  I  cannot,  nor  will  they  expect  it . 
The  little  matter  I  have  left  you,  I  could  wish  had  been 
better  and  larger ;  but  I  trust  it  will  gratify  you,  as  it  is  an 
honour  to  me  to  have  named  you  even  in  my  last  will.' 
So  well  was  it  understood  that  Casaubon  was  the  nearest 
and  dearest,  that  it  was  to  him  that  Heinsius  addressed  the 
graphic  and  touching  narrative  of  the  hero's  last  hours. 
Casaubon  was  to  communicate  it  to  de  Thou.  To  Casau- 
bon was  assigned,  by  consent  of  all  the  friends,  the 
composition  of  a  prefatory  eloge  to  Scaliger's  collected 
essays,  which  was  published  in  1610,  a  piece  which  Scipio 
Gentilis,  cast  away  in  the  pine-barrens  of  Franconia, 
could  not  read  without  tears  ^.  Indeed,  Casaubon  had  not 
waited  for  death  to  sanctify  such  an  effusion,  but,  had 
given  vent  to  his  feehngs  in  a  preface  to  Scaliger's  greek 
translation  of  Martial,  a  panegyric  upon  the  living  which 
was  intended  as  compensation  for  the  brutal  attack  of  the 
'  Amphitheatrum,'  and  was  taken  by  Scaliger  as  such  *. 

Casaubon's  letters  to  Scaliger  are  truly  autobiographical. 
In  the  whole  folio  volume,  among  more  than  1200  letters, 
there  are  none  which  have  the  same  confiding  tone,  the 

'  This  cup  is  left  by  Casaubon's  will  '  to  that  sonne,  who  walkinge  in  the 
feare  of  God,  shal  be  fittest  to  sustayne  my  family,  I  doe  give  the  cup  of  M''. 
Scaliger.  of  moste  happie  memory.'     See  note  A  in  app.  to  sect.  lo. 

'  Burney  Mss  376,  and  see  Bullet.de  la  soc.  prot.  18.  595. 

'  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  141. 

'  Seal.  epp.  p.  337 :  '  Ego  profecto  iilam  non  ad  meam  laudem,  sed  ad 
defensionem  mei  comparatam  esse  judico.' 

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242  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

perfect  truth  that  what  is  said  will  fall  on  a  friendly  ear, 
and  be  secure  of  friendly  response.  Scaliger  is  an  accurate 
and  satisfactory  correspondent :  replying  himself  to  each 
topic  started  in  the  letter  he  is  answering;  a  punctuality 
which  Casaubon  does  not  imitate.  From  no  one  does 
Casaubon  receive  in  his  griefs  that  solid  comfort  which 
Scaliger  was  prompt  to  offer.  '  I  cannot  tell  you,'  writes 
Casaubon  ^  in  July,  1608,  '  the  satisfaction  your  last  gave 
me.  It  was  so  unmistakably  evident  how  much  you  loved 
me,  and  how  deeply  you  felt  my  adverse  fortune.  You 
were  the  only  one  who  sympathised  with  me  when  I  was 
swindled  by  the  petty  tyrants  of  the  lake  (Geneva).  And 
now  again  this  thunderbolt  has  fallen  on  my  house  (death 
of  Philippa),  your  letters  show  that  you  feel  it  with  me. 
The  labour  you  spent  in  writing  to  me  was  not  thrown 
away,  8te  y^pov,  the  reading  of  your  epistle  was  no  small  com- 
fort to  me.'  Casaubon's  affectionate  nature  having  found 
a  strong  soul  to  which  to  cling,  abandoned  itself  to  the  culte 
of  the  hero  with  a  devotion  which  bordered  on  idolatry.  '  I 
know,'  he  writes  ^  in  1605,  '  what  the  good  and  the  learned 
owe  to  you ;  how  much  more  do  I  owe !  Were  I  to 
spend  my  life  in  your  service,  in  executing  your  commands, 
I  could  not  repay  a  tenth  part  of  the  debt.  What  a  father 
is  to  a  son,  that  you  are  to  me  ;  I  am  your  devoted  client.' 
While  the  loss  was  recent  he  writes  to  Kirchmann  ^ : 
'  What  tears  are  enough  at  this  funeral  ?  Past  ages  have 
never  seen  his  like;  perhaps  no  future  time  will.  The 
more  conversant  any  one  becomes  with  letters,  the  more 
grand  will  he  find  that  incomparable  hero  in  his  writings ! ' 
To  Du  Plessis  Mornay  he  says*,  'His  death  has  taken 
away  all  my  courage.     Now  I  can  do  nothing  more.' 

To  all  these  losses,  sorrows,  and  vexations  must  be 
added  another  constant  source  of  misery.  This  was  the 
habitual  ill-health  of  himself  and  almost  all  his  family. 

'  Ep.  606.  3  Ep.  460. 

*  Ep.  6a8.  «  Ep.  624. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1 6 10.  343 

Madame  Casaubon,  besides  her  twenty-two  confinements, 
was  always  ailing,  often  alarmingly  ill,  though  she 
survived  her  husband,  notwithstanding,  many  years.  On 
the  occasion  of  these  frequent  attacks,  which  seem  to  have 
been  of  the  nature  of  intermittent  fever,  Isaac  was 
assiduous  in  waiting  on  his  wife,  and  sacrificed  his  hours 
without  a  murmur.  The  children  were  equally  trouble- 
some; first  one,  then  another,  sometimes  all  at  once, 
January,  1604,  he  writes  to  Du  Puy,  'Since  you  left  us 
we  have  hardly  spent  a  single  day  free  from  illness,  either 
of  myself  or  my  wife,  or  both.'  September  12,  1610,  the 
diary  has,  '  My  wife,  setting  off  to  receive  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  supper,  had  no  sooner  entered  the  barge 
than  she  began  to  be  unwell.  She  communicated,  but 
was  immediately  after  brought  home  by  our  two  friends, 
M.  Herauld  and  Dr.  Arbault  (the  physician),  and  she  now 
lies  suffering  from  a  severe  attack  of  fever.  Meanwhile 
the  greater  part  of  our  children  are  in  bed  with  fever,  and 
I  too  have  begun  to  be  unwell.  God  eternal,  look  upon 
this  prostrate  family.' 

Upon  Isaac  himself  the  shadow  of  death  was  slowly 
advancing  for  years  before  the  closing  scene.  His 
ailment  was  constitutional,  but  was  aggravated  by  the 
sedentary  life  he  had  led  from  his  early  youth.  Scaliger 
already  in  1606  knew  of  him,  by  description,  as  'tout 
courbe  d'estude ;'  he  was  then  only  forty-seven.  August, 
1610,  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  the  diary  notes  the 
passing  of  gravel,  though  as  a  symptom  which  had  ap- 
peared some  time  before.  He  is  always  dosing  himself 
with  purgatives,  or  being  treated  or  bled  by  his  doctors. 
After  the  death  of  Lefevre,  '  who  best  knew  how  to  treat 
this  weakly  carcase  of  mine,'  there  were  Arbault  and 
Mayerne,  -the  latter  of  whom  he  again  met  in  England. 
From  what  we  hear  of  their  treatment,  it  seems  to  have 
been  governed  exclusively  by  a  fear  of  fever,  and  by  the 
presence  of  gravel.     He  drinks  Spa  water,  which  was  as 

R  2 

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244  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

procurable  in  Paris  then  as  now.  For  years  he  had  used 
little  or  no  wine.  'Wine  does  not  make  men  more 
disposed  to  study,'  he  says  in  correcting  <^tX^ai;  for 
^ikocTo^lav  in  Athenaeus,  5.  i.  As  early  as  1597,  Varanda, 
the  Montpellier  physician^,  used  to  tell  him  that  if  he 
continued  to  live  as  he  was  then  doing,  he  would  have, 
like  Achilles,  a  glorious  career  but  a  short  one. 

The  bodily  languor,  of  which  he  constantly  complains, 
manifested  itself  in  a  dejected  and  apprehensive  condition 
of  mind.    This  grew  upon  him.     He  begins  to  consider 
himself  a  marked  man,   against  whom    the   fates    have 
conspired.    His  letters  are  lost ;    no  one  else's  are,  of 
course  ^.     '  I   recognise    my   luck,   a  man   to    whom   for 
montjis  past  nothing  has  happened,  but  what  is  disagree- 
able and  contrary.'    This  general  tinge   of  sadness  not 
only  colours  the  diary,  it  is  visible  in  all  he  writes.     He 
expresses '  his  fear  that  traces  of  this  depression  will  be 
found  in  the  Polybius ;  in  the  commentary,  no  doubt,  for  it 
could  hardly  infect  translation.     Translation,  demanding 
close  attention  and  watchful  care,  but  no  intellectual  elas- 
ticity, was  just  the  occupation  to  deaden  sorrow.    Polybius, 
he  tells  Rittershusius  *,  had  been  his  refuge  and  solace, 
the  only  anodyne  of  his  suffering  under  the  loss  of  his 
daughter,  which  else  had  been  unbearable.     Heavy  grief, 
such  as  this,  drove  him  to  his  books ;  lesser  annoyances 
and  worries  took  him  from  them  ®,  and  so  fretted  his  mind, 
'that  he  must  almost  renounce  the  Muses.'     This  happens 
especially  on  occasions  of  Madame  Casaubon's  absence. 
The  cares  of  the  household  are  then  thrown  upon  him ; 
a  hungry  craving  for  her  presence  takes  possession  of 
him ;  he  is  in  positive  anguish  if  she  does  not  write  by 
every  post ;  if  she  postpones  her  return  from  Grigny  for 
a  single  day,  he  is  the  most  wretched  of  men. 
There  is,  indeed,  in  the  faces,  as  in  the  words,  of  all 

^  Ep.  133,  where  Veranaeus  is,  no  doubt,  Varanda.  *  Ep.  604. 

'  Ep.  623.  *  Ep.  6n.  5  Ep.  584. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  345 

the  old  huguenots  of  Henri  iv.'s  reign,  a  common  trait 
of  mournfulness.  They  write  as  men  for  whom  hope  is 
extinct,  whose  cause  is  lost;  with  a  consciousness  that 
they  belong  to  a  past  age,  that  they  have  nothing  to 
look  for  in  this  world.  They  sit  waiting  for  death  as  the 
hour  of  relief.  ^'  My  last  sad  consolation,'  writes  Scaliger, 
in  1606,  '  is  that  if  any  general  disaster  is  in  the  air,  death 
is  near  at  hand  to  deliver  me.'  Calignon,  set.  57,  sank 
under  the  weight  of  chagrin  in  the  same  year,  saying, 
'^'good  men  had  no  reason  to  desire  to  live.'  Du  Plessis 
Mornay  we  have  seen  retire  broken-hearted  to  his 
petty  governorship  of  Saumur;  D'Aubigne  was  equally 
estranged :  de  Thou  struggled,  alone  and  in  vain,  against 
the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  the  tendencies  of  the  age  ^. 

Forgetfulness  was  surely  the  only  condition  on  which 
a  huguenot  could  live  in  Paris.  It  is  surprising,  after  what 
had  occurred,  after  1572,  and  the  ten  subsequent  years,  to 
find  them  within  twenty  years  domiciled  in  the  capital, 
still  stained  with  their  blood,  and  going  about  among 
a  populace  which  was  still  taught  to  execrate  them. 
The  administration  of  Henri  iv,  though  not  what  can  be 
called  a  strong  police,  was  firm  and  just  enough  to  be 
respected.  Yet  no  executive  has  been  secure  against 
surprise  by  the  excitable  Parisian  mob,  and  much  mischief 
could  be  done  before  armed  help  could  come.  Scaliger's 
estimate  of  the  situation  at  the  time  of  the  huguenot  panic 
of  1605  seems  to  put  it  in  a  clear  light.  Himself  in  a  safe 
retreat,  yet  having  his  most  valued  friends  in  the  place  of 
danger,  and  in  intimate  relations  with  the  french  embassy 
at  the  Hague,  he  was  better  informed  than  Casaubon, 
though  on  the  spot.  He  writes  July  24,  1605,  'The  two 
principal  topics  in  your  last,  viz.  the   perpetual  terror 


'  Seal.  epp.  p.  337 :  '  Ultima  est  ilia  consolatio,  sed  miserrima,  quod  si  qua 
futura  est  calamitas,  eo  brevior  erit,  quo  propius  a  morte  absum.' 
2  Thuani  Hist.  6.  381. 
'  [De  Thou,  however,  was  not  himself  a  huguenot ;  see  aniea,  p.  59  ] 

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246  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

in  which  you  live,  and  the  offer  from  Nimes,  require  more 
time,  and  more  consideration,  if  I  am  to  make  an  advised 
answer.  But  I  can  now  only  write  a  few  hurried  words, 
as  young  Vassan,  who  takes  this,  is  leaving  immediately. 
You  tell  me  you  do  not  think  yourself  safe  where  you  are, 
where  bad  men  have  the  upper  hand,  and  the  influence  of 
the  good  is  diminishing  daily.  I  make  allowance  for 
some  misgiving;  there  is  too  much  ground  for  it,  you 
share  it  with  all  good  men  ;  and  I  cannot  be  surprised  that 
you  should  have  thought  of  removing.  But  if  one  looks 
more  closely  into  the  grounds  of  this  panic,  it  does  not 
certainly  seem  to  me  that  there  is  sufficient  reason  for 
forming  any  such  desperate  resolution.  After  all,  the 
bad  have  not  yet  reached  such  a  height  of  power  as  to 
have  the  good  at  their  mercy;  nor  under  the  present 
sovereign  is  the  innocent  less  safe  there  than  the  bully. 
I  do  not  see  any  ground  for  thinking  that  you  cannot 
continue  to  live  there  in  safety.  If  you  come  to  the 
inscrutable  future  (r6  &br]Xov  rod  iieXXovros)  and  urge  that 
the  part  of  prudence  is  to  anticipate  the  fall  of  the  house, 
and  not  to  wait  till  it  has  tumbled  in  upon  you,  I  remind 
you  that  a  man  is  a  man,  and  not  God,  who  alone  can 
know  future  events.  If  it  is  the  part  of  the  wise  to 
suspect  a  calm,  I  rejoin  it  is  also  his  part  not  to  believe 
every  alarming  rumour.' 

The  obscure  allusion  in  the  last  sentences  is  to  what 
neither  of  the  correspondents  would  put  into  words,  but 
what  was  in  both  their  thoughts.  The  catastrophe  of  May 
14,  1610,  was  felt,  and  known  to  be  coming,  even  then,  at 
five  years'  distance. 

It  was  not,  then,  mere  fretful  restlessness  which  urged 
Casaubon,  during  his  twelve  years'  sojourn  in  Paris,  to  be 
always  planning  to  leave.  The  uncertain  tenure  of  his 
office,  the  insecurity  of  Ufe  itself,  combined,  with  the 
wearying  distractions  of  society,  to  engage  him  to  seek 
quiet  and  safety  elsewhere.    It  was  so  well  known  that  he 

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IV,]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  347 

was  on  the  wing,  that  overtures  were  being  continually 
made  to  him,  from  various  quarters.  With  each  of  these 
he  dallied  for  a  time,  but  when  it  came  to  the  point,  the 
negotiation  was  always  broken  off.  The  real  reason  was 
that  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  offend  Henri  iv, 
who  made  his  stay  a  personal  matter,  and  would  have 
made  his  departure  a  personal  quarrel.  By  going  else- 
where he  might  get  rid  of  importunate  visitors,  but  would 
sacrifice  valuable  friends.  And  what  library  could  replace 
to  him  the  royal  library  ? 

Of  all  places  Geneva,  his  native  city,  which  had  so 
wronged  him,  was  least  likely  to  be  the  chosen  Zoar.  Yet 
his  friends  in  Geneva,  Lect  and  Diodati,  were  not  without 
hope.  In  1601,  Lect  writes^  that  their  poverty,  and  the 
Savoy  fort,  prevented  them  from  thinking  of  establishing 
a  second,  or  extraordinary  professorship  of  classics,  and 
that  it  was  equally  impossible  to  disturb  the  actual  holder, 
Du  Laurens,  in  the  professorship  which  had  been  Casau- 
bon's.  After  the  destruction  of  the  fort,  Lect  writes  again 
that  they  had  invited  Godefroy  to  be  professor  of  law,  but 
that  he  could  never  describe  the  academy  as  flourishing, 
till  they  got  Casaubon  back.  It  was  at  Lect's  house  that 
Casaubon  was  lodged  during  his  visit  in  1603  ^ ;  Lect  was 
also  his  lawyer  in  his  Genevan  affairs,  and  was  a  member 
of  the  council.  So  that  there  was  no  want  either  of  good- 
will or  opportunity  on  Lect's  part.  But  we  do  not  find 
that  Casaubon  much  encouraged  these  overtures,  if  they 
can  be  so  called.  He  had  outgrown  the  situation.  He 
was  aware  that  Geneva,  with  its  narrow  religionism,  was 
no  longer  any  place  for  him.  Church  politics  were  the  one 
only  interest  in  the  calvinist  capital.  They  had  given 
Casaubon  a  handsome  reception,  in  1603,  poor  as  they 


1  Burney  mss.  365.  pp.  60.  68. 

"  At  the  time  of  this  visit,  Lect  writes  to  Goldast,  Goldasti  epp.  p.  118, 
mentioning  Casaubon's  being  at  Geneva,  but  without  any  hint  of  his  being 
invited  to  remain, 


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248  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

were ;  had  invited  him  to  a  pubhc  banquet,  but  it  was  as 
a  'distinguished  coreligionist;'  and  Pierre  Du  Mouhn 
shortly  afterwards  received  the  same  honour  ^.  For  learn- 
ing there  was  in  Geneva  not  a  spark  of  intelligence, 
sympathy,  or  appreciation.  Casaubon  too  must  have  been 
shocked  at  the  poverty-stricken  aspect  of  the  city.  Beza, 
in  a  letter  dated  October  i8,  1603,  describes  it^:  'This 
poor  republic  supports  a  burden  under  which  it  is  a 
miracle  that  it  does  not  sink;  being  obliged  to  keep  up 
a  garrison  of  from  300  to  400  men.  The  very  houses  are 
fast  becoming  ruinous,  and  all  things  are  much  changed 
since  you  left.'  Godefroy,  who  at  first  accepted  the 
invitation  sent  him,  when  he  saw  what  the  place  was  like  ^, 
preferred  to  return  to  Heidelberg.  The  duke  of  Savoy, 
unable  to  capture  the  city,  had  succeeded  in  nearly  ruining 
it.  Had  Casaubon  ever  seriously  entertained  the  thought 
of  returning  to  settle  at  Geneva,  it  became  impossible  after 
they  had  confiscated  his  father-in-law's  property,  and  he 
had  proclaimed  them  in  Paris  as  hypocritical  thieves ! 

We  have  seen  *  that,  at  an  earlier  period  of  his  life,  Cas- 
aubon might  have  been  glad  of  a  call  to  the  university  of 
Heidelberg.  The  position  which  was  then  desirable,  was 
become  now  highly  eligible.  The  Palatinate,  its  court  and 
university,  had  been  making  rapid  progress  not  only,  in 
political  importance,  but  in  education  and  culture.  It  was 
become  the  intellectual  centre  of  western  Germany.  Re- 
finement is  perhaps  a  term  hardly  applicable  to  any  German 
court  of  the  period.  Hunting  and  hawking,  heavy  feasts 
prolonged  to  swinish  intoxication,  were  the  serious 
occupations  of  the  princes  and  nobles;  genealogy  their 
only  science.  Frederick  iv,  elector  Palatine  (ti6io),  was  not 
exempt  from  the  failings  of  his  class,  and  possibly  hastened 
his  end  by  intemperance.    Yet  the  debasing  habits  of  his 

•  Du  Moulin,  autobiographie,  Bullet,  de  la  soc.  prot.  7.  342. 

"  Bullet,  de  la  soc.  prot.  20.  162. 

'  Goldasti  epp.  p.  118.  *  See  above,  p.  74. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1 600-1 6 10.  349 

nation  and  class  ^  had  not  extinguished  in  Frederick  iv.  a 
taste  for  better  things.  He  was  able  to  take  an  intelligent 
share  not  only  in  the  administration  of  his  hereditary 
principahties,  but  in  the  political  complication  which  was 
enveloping  the  Palatinate  in  its  fatal  web.  The  electress 
Louisa  Juliana,  daughter  of  William  of  Orange  and 
Charlotte  of  Bourbon,  imported  into  her  german  court 
something  both  of  french  breeding,  and  of  republican 
simplicity.  The  best  men  of  the  protestant  party,  such  as 
Christian  of  Anhalt,  came  and  went  as  frequent  visitors. 
Lingelsheim,  who  had  been  preceptor,  and  was  now 
minister,  of  the  elector,  was  a  devoted  admirer  of  Scaliger, 
and  had  been  for  some  time  among  Isaac  Casaubon's 
correspondents.  Marquard  Freher,  another  member  of 
the  prince's  council,  eminent  as  a  teutonic  antiquary,  had 
corresponded  with  him  since  1594.  Another  link  with 
Heidelberg  was  Bongars,  one  of  Isaac's  best  friends  and 
earliest  patrons,  who  was  agent,  or  envoy,  for  France  to 
the  german  princes,  and  was  perpetually  passing  between 
Paris  and  the  Rhenane  cities.  Christian  of  Anhalt,  dur- 
ing his  visits  to  Paris,  had  taken  much  notice  of  Casaubon. 
To  von  Buwinkhausen,  the  Wiirtemberg  envoy,  he  had 
dedicated  his  Gregorius  Nyssenus.  All  these  were  men  of 
influence  and  position.  Beside  them  Casaubon  was  lie 
with  the  more  eminent  men  of  letters — they  were  not 
many — who  were  to  be  found  on  the  upper  Rhine,  with 
Denis  Godefroy,  with  Gruter,  Jungerman,  Scipio  Gentilis, 
and  stood  himself  in  the  light  of  patron  to  the  young 
Saumaise,  a  french  scholar,  who  was  now  engaged  in 
disinterring  the  ms.  treasures  of  the  Palatine  hbrary. 

It  was  natural,  on  both  sides,  that  Casaubon  should 
think  of  Heidelberg  as  his  place  of  retirement,  and  that 

'  Stamler  writes  to  Rittershusius,  in  1603,  that  Pacius  declines  a  call  to 
Heidelberg  because  '  a  principe  indocto,  cui  docti  et  literae  sordent,  aulici  plus 
quam  studiosa  juventus  et  professores  amentur.'  Vita  Camerarii,  p.  201. 
There  was,  however,  a  not  inconsiderable  amount  of  life  in  the  university. 
See  the  vague  panegyric  of  Hausser,  Geschichte  der  Pfalz,  2.  260. 

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250  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  Palatine  Athens  should  offer  an  invitation.  In  August, 
1607,  Casaubon  gives  Lingelsheim  to  understand  that  he 
may  have  to  leave  Paris  ^ : — 

'  I  have  little  doubt,  most  noble  sir,  that  Denis  Godefroy 
has  reported  to  you  something  of  the  conversations  we 
had,  with  much  mention  of  you,  during  his  visit  to  this 
place  (Paris).  He  may  have  hinted  to  you  that  the 
present  state  of  tranquillity  we  have  enjoyed  by  favour  of 
the  Almighty  for  some  years  past,  is  only  on  the  surface, 
as  it  were  skin-deep,  and  is  watched  with  much  anxiety 
by  those  who  can  read  the  signs  of  the  times.  During  the 
late  distemper  of  our  prince,  all  good  men  were  in  great 
alarm.  I,  for  my  part,  was  meditating  flight.  God  was 
merciful,  and  restored  health  to  him,  on  whose  safety  ours 
depends.  I  trust  I  may  never  see  a  day  so  woful  to  our 
France.  But  should  it  happen  otherwise  (which  God 
forbid)  I  have  resolved  upon  taking  refuge  among  you, 
and  placing  me  and  mine  out  of  danger.' 

On  this  hint,  the  elector's  council  authorised  von  Buwink- 
hausen  to  make  overtures  to  Casaubon.  What  was  pro- 
posed to  him  was  a  theological  chair  of  some  kind, 
probably  ecclesiastical  history.  The  offer  did  not  come 
till  July  1608,  but  it  must  have  been  decided  on  some  time 
before,  as  Lingelsheim  speaks  of  it  ^  as  already  mooted  in 
November  1607,  and  Scaliger,  at  Leyden,  knew  of  the 
intention  as  early  as  March  1608.  He  wrote  to  Casaubon 
then,  and  received  for  reply  ^  that  he  had  heard  something 
of  the  sort  talked  of,  but  did  not  believe  there  was  anything 
in  it.  In  December  1607,  Lingelsheim  expresses  himself 
as  '  out  of  patience  with  the  usual  dilatoriness  with  which 
Casaubon's  business  proceeds.'  In  July  1608,  the  offer 
was  made  in  form.  Casaubon,  with  many  professions  of 
his  own  unworthiness,  accepted.  The  arrangements  were 
to  be  completed  after  the  return  of  the  envoy,  who  was 
going  out  of  town  for  a  short  time.     He  did  not  return  as 

'  Ep.  562.  ^  Lingelshemii  epp.  ep.  80.  ^  Ep.  593. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  251 

soon  as  expected,  and  when  he  did  the  matter  was  not 
resumed.  Why,  I  am  unable  to  explain.  Casaubon 
speaks  1  of  impediments— '  quae  id  inceptum  circumstent 
impedimenta  '—in  a  way  to  imply  that  they  were  on  the 
german  side,  and  not  on  his. 

After  Heidelberg,  the  most  eligible  offer  was  from 
Nimes  2.  The  college  of  arts  in  this  town  was  a  founda- 
tion of  Francis  i,  which  had  survived  the  troubles  of 
religion.  Like  the  town  generally,  it  was  protestant,  and 
managed  by  the  consuls.  The  administration  of  the 
college  was  conducted  by  a  rector,  who  was  by  the  statutes 
one  of  the  professors,  elected  for  two  years  only.  But  he 
was  re-eligible,  and  in  practice  it  had  become  customary 
to  continue  him  in  the  office  as  long  as  he  chose.  The 
celebrated  Julius  Pacius,  in  the  course  of  his  wandering 
existence,  had  held  the  rectorate  at  Nimes  for  two  or  three 
years.  When  Scaliger  said  that  if  he  were  to  quit  Ley- 
den,  the  place  he  should  choose  to  set  up  his  staff  in 
would  be  Nimes*,  he  had  in  view  not  only  the  climate, 
but  the  character  of  the  college. 

Theology  was  less  exclusively  dominant  there  than  in 
any  of  the  other  protestant  academies.  This  is  not 
saying  much ;  and  though  there  were  teachers  of  some 
repute  at  the  college,  among  them  several  Scots,  there  was 
not  sun  and  air  enough  for  a  Casaubon,  much  less  for  a 
Scaliger.  In  1605,  however,  the  consuls  made  Isaac  the 
formal  offer  of  a  chair,  and  the  rectorate.  They  would 
give  600  crowns,  and  a  roomy  house.  The  amount  shows 
the  importance  they  attached  to  Casaubon's  presence,  as 
the  previous  rector,  Charles  d'Aubus,  had  only  a  third  of 

1  Ep.  623. 

^  The  account  which  pastor  Borrell  has  given  of  the  academy  of  Nimes, 
Bullet,  de  la  soc.  prot.  13.  288,  would  have  been  more  valuable  if  the  authorities, 
on  which  it  is  based,  had  been  cited.  [See  now,  for  a  full  account  of  the 
Academy  of  Nimes,  Claude  Baduel  et  la  Reforme  des  Etudes  au  XVI'  Steele,  par 
M.  J.  Gaufrfes,  Paris,  1880.] 

^  Scaligerana,  p.  i6g :  '  Si  je  voulois  demeurer  en  quelque  lieu,  je  choisirois 
ce  pays  de  Nismes  pour  y  planter  mon  bourdon.' 

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a5a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

the  sum.  Even  Pacius  at  Montpellier,  where  he  now  was, 
was  only  at  500  crowns,  besides  fees  however.  Six  hun- 
dred crowns  was  the  highest  honorarium  then  paid  to  any 
teacher  in  the  faculty  of  arts,  and  was  only  given  in  rare 
cases ;  e.  g.  it  was  what  had  been  offered  to  Lipsius  to 
induce  him  to  settle  in  the  university  of  Paris.  '  Never,' 
writes  Casaubon^  'do  I  remember  to  have  been  in  greater 
perplexity  as  to  what  I  should  do.  For  months  past  I 
have  been  agitated  by  this  deliberation.  When  I  think  of 
my  studies,  I  should  choose  to  live  and  die  here,  where 
there  is  wealth  of  books.  And  de  Thou  bids  me  not  to 
think  of  removal.  I  must  consider  my  great  patron  too, 
who,  I  know,  likes  me— one  point  only  excepted.  And 
then  the  distance  from  you  (Scaliger) ! '  In  1606  the 
negotiation  is  still  pending.  Adam  Abernethey,  one  of 
the  Scottish  regents,  writes  to  Casaubon^  promising 
himself  great  profit  in  learning  from  his  settlement  at 
Nimes.  But  across  this  proposal  came  the  more  eligible 
Heidelberg  offer,  and  Nimes  was  dropped. 

Another  place  of  retreat,  of  which  Casaubon  had  once 
thought,  was  Sedan  ^.  In  the  little  court  kept  by  the  due 
de  Bouillon,  there  were  to  be  seen  nobles  and  princes, 
among  them  the  duke's  nephews,  the  sons  of  the  elector 
palatine,  resorting  thither  as  a  place  where  they  could 
combine  a  protestant  education  with  the  advantage  of 
learning  the  french  tongue.  It  was  not  that  he  might  mix 
with  princes  and  nobles  that  Sedan  was  chosen  by  Isaac 
as  M  eric's  school.  As  a  kind  of  frontier  fort  on  the 
confines  of  the  protestant  north,  it  offered  facilities  for 
escape  in  case  of  a  religious  outbreak.  We  find,  however, 
no  actual  proposal  for  settling  there  made  by  Isaac.  The 
unsettled  relations  between  the  duke  and  the  french 
government  in  these  years  made  it  uncertain  how  long  the 
little  principality  would  continue  to  enjoy  that  semi-inde- 

'  Ep.  456.  '^  Burney  Mss   363.  =  Ep.  233. 

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IV.]  PARIS.      1600-1610.  %t^^ 

pendence  which  was  the  only  guarantee  of  its  preserving 
its  protestantism. 

At  one  time  Isaac  planned  a  visit  to  Venice.  This  was 
suggested  by  Fra  Paolo.  Not  that  the  father  invited  him. 
On  the  contrary,  he  gave  him  a  hint  to  stay  away.  '  The 
air  of  Italy  might  easily  disagree  with  him  ^ ; '  a  significant 
hint  from  one  who  had  just  escaped  assassination.  Casau- 
bon  had  been  in  correspondence  with  this  remarkable 
person  since  1604.  It  was  indeed  a  correspondence  con- 
ducted under  difficulties.  Casaubon  could  not  use  the 
channel  of  the  french  ambassador,  his  former  friend,  now 
become,  like  all  perverts,  an  ultramontane  enrage.  Conse- 
quently, his  letters  were  long  on  the  road ;  one  of  them, 
with  a  copy  of  the  Polybius,  eleven  months  ^.  Casaubon 
had  introduced  himself  to  Fra  Paolo  in  his  usual  way. 
The  father  knew  of  him,  of  course,  and  not  only  knew  of 
him  in  1604,  when  Isaac  had  already  acquired  a  name,  but 
had  done  so  ever  since  his  notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius. 
This  fact  shows  how  closely  Fra  Paolo  watched  the 
publishing  world.  A  scrubby  volume,  of  no  particular 
mark,  published  in  the  capital  of  heresy,  had  not  escaped 
his  eye.  In  1606,  when  father  Sarpi's  writings  on  the 
interdict  reached  Paris,  Casaubon's  attention  was  imme- 
diately arrested  by  them.  •  '  Have  you  seen,'  he  asks  ^ 
Scaliger,  'the  brochures  which  have  been  published  at 
Venice  within  the  last  few  months  ?  If  you  have,  I  should 
hke  to  hear  your  opinion  of  them,  especially  of  that  of  the 
great  father  Paul.  In  reading  them,  I  cannot  but  hope 
that  the  time  is  at  hand  when  letters  and  sacred  learning 
may  find  a  place  in  those  countries.'  This  hope  was 
hardly  uttered  before  it  was  extinguished  by  the  settle- 
ment of  the  dispute,  France,  as  always,  throwing  its 
weight  into  the  ultramontane  scale.  But  Fra  Paolo  still 
lived,   in  spite   of   the   papal  daggers.    Accordingly,  in 

>  Ep.  811.  *  Burney  Mss.  365.  '  Ep.  542. 

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254  ISAAC  C AS  A  V BON.  [Sect. 

March  1610,  when  deHvered  from  the  task  of  revising  his 
Suetonius,  Isaac  planned  a  visit  to  Venice  ^.  '  I  wish  to 
see  the  country,  and  the  learned  men  who  are  there,  but 
above  all  the  greatest  of  them,  the  famous  Paul.  I  desire 
also  to  see  with  my  own  eyes  the  greek  church  2,  and  to 
make  myself  acquainted  with  the  faith  and  observances 
of  the  greek  nation.  God  eternal,  do  thou  forward  me 
on  this  journey,  if  it  be  for  the  promotion  of  thy  glory, 
and  the  welfare  of  me  and  mine ;  if  otherwise,  prevent  it.' 
The  events  which  shortly  followed  may  have  been  the 
answer  to  this  prayer,  making  the  Italian  visit  impossible. 
Saumaise  formed  a  few  years  later  a  like  purpose,  but 
was  diverted  from  it  by  a  dream  ^.  Saumaise's  object  was 
to  see  the  classical  remains.  It  will  be  remarked,  as  charac- 
teristic of  the  predominance  of  theological  ideas  in  Isaac 
Casaubon's  mind,  that,  though  his  life  had  been  spent  upon 
the  classics,  and  latterly  upon  Roman  History,  Polybius, 
Suetonius,  the  Augustan  historians,  he  never  thinks  of 
the  Roman  architecture  among  the  objects  of  a  journey  to 
Italy.  What  he  wishes  to  see  is  the  greek  church  !  The 
importance  of  the  monuments  was  not  generally  recognised 
by  the  scholars  till  the  end  of  the  century.  To  Casaubon, 
as  to  his  contemporaries,  the  ancient  world  was  comprised 
in  books.  Clement,  writing  the  life  of  Saumaise  in  1656, 
asks, '  What  had,  or  has,  Rome,  that  the  learned  should  be 
so  desirous  of  seeing  it  ?  Everything  which  can  promote 
learning  and  the  knowledge  of  antiquity,  be  it  inscriptions 
or  monuments,  is  now  to  be  had  printed,  or  engraved, 
with  accuracy,  and  with  far  greater  neatness  and  distinct- 
ness, than  they  would  be  seen  in  situ.' 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  placed  to  Casaubon's 
credit  that  he  recognised  the  importance  of  Paolo  Sarpi, 
and  gives  him  the  epithet  of  'great,'  which  is  here  well 

*  Ephem.  p.  734. 

^  [Casaubon  is  apparently  referring  to  S.  Giorgio  dei  Greci,  the  church  of  the 
Greek  community  in  Venice.]  '  Clement,  Vita  Salmasii,  p.  xxix. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  255 

placed.  He  who  to  Du  Perron  seemed  'like  any  other 
monk'/  was  a  man  whom  Casaubon  would  fain  have 
made  a  pilgrimage  to  Venice  to  see.  Among  other  traits 
by  which  our  Robert  Sanderson  reminds  us  of  Isaac 
Casaubon,  is  a  speech  of  his  recorded  by  Walton^,  that 
he  wished  he  had  gone  as  chaplain  to  sir  Henry  Wotton, 
on  the  Venetian  embassy,  as  was  intended,  '  as  by  that 
means  I  might  have  known  one  of  the  late  miracles  of 
mankind  for  general  learning,  prudence,  and  modesty. 
Padre  Paolo.' 

Fra  Paolo  continued  to  correspond  with  Casaubon, 
and  to  procure  him  books,  such  as,  especially  hebrew 
books  ^,  could  not  be  met  with  in  France.  Casaubon 
particularly  prized  his  letters  *.  One  of  these  has  a 
peculiar  value,  as  putting  forward  the  father's  position 
towards  his  own  church,  as  a  position  for  which  he  could 
expect  sympathy  from  Casaubon  ^.  '  I  commend  you  in 
that  you  disapprove  those  persons  who  seek  to  force 
the  fathers  to  be  of  their  minds.  Indeed  that  kind  of 
interpretation  by  violence  is  most  reprehensible ;  but 
no  less  a  wrong  is  done  to  the  same  fathers  when  an 
authority  is  claimed  for  them  which  they  never  thought 
of  claiming  for  themselves.  Who  wishes  to  be  taught  by 
the  fathers,  should  first  learn  from  them,  how  much 
weight  properly  attaches  to  their  words.'  He  quotes 
passages  of  S.  Augustin  in  this  sense  and  proceeds  : 
'You  meet  with  absurdities  on  this  subject  among  your 
friends  as  well  as  among  ours,  and  I  would  not  have  you 
lose  any  temper  thereat.  As  long  as  there  are  men,  there 
will  be  fanaticisms.  The  wisest  man  has  warned  us  not 
to  expect  the  world  ever  to  improve  so  much  that  the 
better  part  of  mankind  will  be  the  majority.  No  wise 
man  undertakes  to  correct  the  disorders  of  the  public 
estate.     Be  it  enough  for  you,  if  you  do  some  good  to  me. 

1  See  p.  195.  °  Life  of  Sanderson,  Works,  6.  326. 

'^  Burney  mss.  365,  p.  286.  *  Ep.  812.  =  Burney  Mss.  365  p.  288. 

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256  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

The  wise  man  again  saith,  that  he  who  cannot  endure  the 
madness  of  the  pubhc,  but  goeth  about  to  think  he  can 
cure  it,  is  himself  no  less  mad  than  the  rest.  Since  God 
has  enabled  you  to  see  the  truth,  do  you,  like  Timotheus  ^ 
sing  to  yourself  and  the  muses.  The  just  shall  live  by 
his  faith.  Leave  the  rest  alone,  your  own  mind  is  theatre 
enough  for  yourself. — Venice,  August  17,  1610.' 

It  is  natural  to  enquire  why  was  not  Casaubon  invited 
to  Leyden  on  Scaliger's  death  in  1609  ?  That  place  was 
not  filled  till  1632  by  the  call  of  Saumaise,  who  was 
expressly  invited,  not  to  teach,  but  as  Voorst  insists 
in  his  funeral  oration ^  'that  he  might  shed  upon  the 
university  the  honour  of  his  name,  illustrate  it  by  his 
writings,  adorn  it  by  his  presence.'  The  intervening 
period  is  an  unhappy  page  of  dutch  history.  Patriotism 
and  public  spirit  were  lost  amid  doctrinal  disputes,  in 
which,  barren  and  unmeaning  as  they  were,  all  the  in- 
tellectual energy  of  the  schools  of  Holland  was  merged. 
In  1653,  Gronovius  (J.  F.)''  writes  thus  bitterly  of  the 
decay  of  Leyden  :  '  Expect  nothing  from  us  in  letters,  I 
do  not  say  great,  but  not  even  liberal,  or  becoming  a 
gentleman.  This  condition  of  things  has  long  been 
preparing.  As  far  back  as  Scaliger's  death,  when  they 
might  have  had  Casaubon  for  lifting  up  a  finger,  he  was 
kept  out  of  it,  as  Bochart  was  lately,  by  the  jealousy 
of  the  very  persons  whom  he  thought  he  could  most  rely 
upon.  They  expelled  Vossius,  they  expelled  Meursius. 
Themselves,  they  never  formed  a  single  disciple,  or 
follower  who  was  worth  anything;  never  gave  any 
advice  worth  having  about  the  method  of  study.     Their 


'  [For  Timotheus  read  Antigenidas:  Cicero,  Brutus  50.  187.] 

"  Clement,  Vita  Salmasii,  p.  xlii :   '  Ut  nominis  sui  honorem  academise  huic 

impertiret,  scriptis  eandem  illustraret,  prsesentia  condecoraret.' 

'  Burmann,  Syll.  5.  p.  208 ;   '  Casaubonum,  cum  post  Scaligeri  mortem,   per- 

cussione,  ut   sic   dicam,    digitorum   possent   habere,    excluserunt   illi   maxime 

semuli,  quos   ille  sibi  fidissimos  ibi  putabat.'      There  can  be   no   doubt  that 

Dan.  Heinsius  is  the  person  intended. 

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IV.]  PARIS.     1600-1610.  357 

only  object  was  to  deter  or  suppress  rising  talent,  while 
they  openly  professed  a  cynical  contempt  of  the  very 
studies  which  had  brought  themselves  into  notice.' 

Casaubon  had  many  friends  in  Holland,  which  was  now 
becoming  a  centre  of  learning,  and  rendezvous  of  learned 
men.  Vulcanius,  Baudius,  Bertius,  Scriverius,  Cunseus, 
Drusius,  Meursius,— with  all  these  he  was  in  relations 
more  or  less  close.  With  Grotius  he  had  been  in  corre- 
spondence since  1602,  and  became  personally  acquainted 
with  him  in  England  at  a  later  period.  Vandermyle, 
the  ambassador  from  the  States  General  to  the  court  of 
France,  was  among  his  patrons.  But  his  principal  corre- 
spondent at  Leyden,  after  the  death  of  Scaliger,  was 
Daniel  Heinsius.  They  were  both  united  in  the  culte 
of  the  hero,  and  this  was  their  only  bond  of  union. 
Heinsius  did  not  realise  in  his  maturity  the  promise  of  his 
early  years.  Instead  of  a  second  Scaliger  he  turned  out 
a  fine  writer.  An  elegant  latinist,  his  lectures  and 
orations  were  charming.  In  this  spirit  he  edited  various 
classical  writers,  with  commentaries  in  which  superficial 
knowledge  is  thinly  concealed  by  refined  taste.  His  mind 
was  given  elsewhere, — to  pushing  his  fortunes — and  he 
wrote  of  the  classics  as  a  man  of  the  world  writes  of  them. 
Casaubon,  who  saw  the  Poetics,  the  Theophrastus,  and 
the  Horatius,  cannot  have  been  blind  to  their  worth- 
lessness.  But  he  will  not  say  so.  It  was  not  that  he  was 
disarmed  by  the  constant  homage  paid  by  the  com- 
mentator to  himself  as  'vir  incomparabilis,'  it  is  that  the 
memory  of  Heinsius'  devotion  to  Scaliger  protects  him 
from  criticism,  nay,  even  extorts  praise  of  the  garrulous 
notes,  elegant,  witty,  but  uninstructive.  But  Casaubon's 
praise  is  cold,  and  altogether  his  correspondence  with 
Heinsius,  though  it  was  continued  to  the  last,  is  the  most 
unsatisfactory  of  any  that  has  been  preserved  after  they 
cease  to  write  about  Scaliger.  The  two  correspondents 
are  always  complaining  of  each  other  for  not  writing, 

s 
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358  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

and  wishing  each  other  to  write  oftener,  and  when  they 
do  write,  they  have  nothing  to  send  each  other  but  forced 
comphments.  Casaubon  would  have  sent  over  Meric  to 
study  under  Heinsius,  whose  eager  nature  and  ready 
abundance  made  him  an  excellent  teacher.  But  in  1610  it 
would  not  have  suited  Heinsius'  purpose  to  have  had  Isaac 
himself  at  Leyden,  any  more  than  the  call  of  Saumaise 
suited  him  in  1630. 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  IV. 

Note  A.  p.  144. 

In  the  '  Tr^sor  des  merveilles  de  Fontainebleau,  par  le  Pere 
Dan,'  1642,  is  an  account  of  the  conference,  founded  upon 
information  given  to  the  author  by  one  who  was  present.  One 
incident,  in  which  Casaubon's  name  occurs,  I  have  not  met  with 
elsewhere.  P.  162  :  '  Alors  un  certain  ministre  de  I'erreur,  qui 
estoit  proche  du  sieur  Casaubon,  luy  ayant  dit  qu'il  n'y  avoit 
point  au  texte  grec  (of  S.  Chrysostom)  de  negation,  et  Casaubon, 
qui  tenoit  le  livre,  luy  faisant  voir  du  contraire,  il  demeura  si 
confus  qu'il  se  retira  promptement  parmy  la  presse,  et  servit 
de  ris^e  a  la  compagnie.  le  roy  dit  alors  ce  bon  mot;  "que 
c' estoit  un  jeune  carabin,  qui  apres  avoir  tir6  son  coup  de 
pistolet,  s' estoit  retire  a  I'^cart." ' 


Note  B.  p.  153. 

The  authorities  for  Casaubon's  seven  removals  of  abode  in 
Paris  are  as  follows.  Ep.  541 :  '  Spatio  annorum  vix  septem, 
septies  hue  illuc  libraria  mea  supellex  est  circumlata.'  i.  He 
arrives  in  Paris  March  6,  1600,  at  de  Vic's  hotel.  Ephem.  p. 
234 :  2.  March  28,  he  leaves  de  Vic  to  become  the  guest  of  his 
wife's  cousin,  Henri  Estienne.  Ephem.  p.  239  :  'Cujus  probitas 
nos  illexit  ut  ejus  hospitio  vellemus  uti.'  He  leaves  for  Lyon  May 
30,  and  returns,  this  time  with  all  his  household,  to  Henri 
Estienne's.  Ephem.  pp.  261,  298.  3.  Oct.  25,  he  first  establishes 
himself  in  an  apartment  of  his  own.  Ephem.  p.  306  :  '  Demum 
conducto  hospitio.'  It  is  very  uncomfortable.  Ephem.  p.  326  : 
'  Incommodi  non  parum  ex  habitatione  priore,'  and  4.  he  quits  it, 
Jan.  24,  1601,  for  one  in  the  house  of  '  viri  honesti  D.  Georgii.' 
5.  July  17.  Another  removal.  Ephem.  p.  360:  'Familia  in 
has  aedes  migravit.'  This  was  a  house  found  him  by  Achille 
de   Harlay.     Gillot,  ep.  fran9.  p.   105:  'Monsieur  le  premier 

s  2 
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26o  APPENDIX   TO   SECT.  IV. 

president  qui  Tayme  comme  sa  vertu  le  m^rite,  I'a  log(5  bravement 
et  assez  pres  de  nous.'  Ephem.  p.  360 :  '^dium  commoditas.' 
Ep.  385 :  '  Abest  longius  a  bibliotheca.'  6.  October,  1604.  Ep. 
433 :  '  Mihi  tandem  inventum  hospitium,  illud  quidem  angustum 
et  non  nimis  commodum,  sed  in  quo  tamen,  ego  atque 
uxor,  hoc  praesertim  rerum  statu,  acquiescimus.  Dominus 
aedium  est  senator  Gallus,  sive  Coq,  qui  vastissimam  domum 
sibi  nuper  aedificavit,  et  angulum  quendam  a  reliquo  corpore 
separavit  quod  mercede  locaret.  t6  ivoUiov  est  aureorum  centum.' 
It  was  in  the  faubourg  S.  Germain.  Address  of  letters,  Burney 
Mss.  365.  p.  23.  7.  Finally,  he  settled  close  to  the  library.  Ep. 
461 :  '  Notissima  est  Franciscanorum  \avpa,  in  qua  regione  habito 
prope  aedem  illorum.'  Ep.  456  :  '  Libras  pendo  annuatim  in  hac 
urbe  quingentas.'  Address  of  letters,  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  12, 
'vis-a-vis  des  Cordeliers.'  Madrid  he  began  to  frequent  in  May, 
1604,  Ep.  397,  Schulze,  ep.  9.  La  Bretonniere  was  substituted 
for  Madrid  in  the  summer  of  1606,  Burney  mss.  365.  address  of 
letters.     Grigny  was  acquired  in  1607,  Epliem.  p.  540. 

Note  C.  p.  156. 

The  long  struggle  of  the  university  of  Paris  against  the  Jesuits 
(1564-1620)  has  been  generally  treated  as  an  episode  of  the 
history  of  the  Gallican  church.  It  ought  to  be  viewed  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  history  of  letters  and  civilisation  in  France. 
The  official  history  by  M.  Jourdain,  which  is  sufficiently  copious 
in  point  of  detail,  does  not  place  the  true  issue  clearly  before  the 
reader.  University  reform  was  the  terrain  upon  which  the 
liberals  contended  with  the  reaction.  On  this,'  as  on  every 
other  point,  the  victory,  after  the  avenement  of  Henri  iv,  re- 
mained with  the  catholic  and  obscurantist  party.  This  fact  is 
entirely  disguised,  or  ignored,  in  the  general  histories,  which 
make  much  of  the  reformation  of  September  18,  1600.  Ultra- 
montanism,  indeed,  received  a  signal  check.  The  authority  of 
the  lay  sovereign  was  vindicated,  as  against  the  ecclesiastical. 
Whereas  the  previous  'reform'  had  been  carried  through  by 
a  cardinal  legate,  in  the  name  of  the  pope,  the  reform  of  1600 
was  conducted  without  reference  to  the  legate,  by  a  royal  com- 
mission. This  point,  and  it  was  a  great  one,  gained  for  the 
gallican  and  national  party,  the  reformers  had  exhausted  their 
strength.     The  first  article  of  the  new  statutes  enacted  the 

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APPENDIX   TO    SECT.  IV.  %6i 

exclusion  of  all  non-catholics  not  only  from  teaching,  but  from 
being  taught,  in  the  public  schools.  Whatever  de  Thou  and 
Achille  de  Harlay  may  have  wished,  they  could  not  have  got 
Casaubon  appointed  one  of  the  professors  of  the  college  royal. 
M.  Martin,  indeed,  makes  him  one.  Hist,  de  France,  lo.  478 :  '  En 
d^pit  des  lettres  patentes  de  Charles  ix,  qui  avaient  exclu  le 
protestant  Ramus,  Henri  iv.  appela  parmi  les  professeurs  le 
protestant  Casaubon,  I'^rudition  incarn^e.'  M.  Martin  adds 
that  the  reform  of  1600  was  so  sound  and  durable  that  '  au  fond 
nous  en  vivons  encore.'  That  is  true,  except  that  the  insignifi- 
cance of  the  university  of  Paris  in  point  of  science  and  learning 
dates  from  1572  instead  of  from  1600.  For  a  full  expose  of  the 
character  of  the  statutes  of  1600,  M.  Martin  refers  to  'un  tres- 
bon  chapitre '  of  M.  Poirson's  elaborate  monograph  on  Henri  iv. 
M.  Poirson  is  equally  blind  to  the  capital  fact  of  this  '  reform,' 
viz.  that  it  was  the  triumph  of  Catholicism.  The  university  was 
kept  in  subordination  to  the  church.  Over  this  decisive  fact 
M.  Poirson  glides,  by  the  statement,  3.  763 :  '  Les  statuts 
pourvoient  des  les  premiers  articles,  a  ce  que  la  jeunesse  des 
colleges  soit  6lev6e  dans  la  connoissance  et  la  pratique  de  la 
religion,  a  ce  que  son  education  soit  Sminemment  chr^tienne.' 

Note  D.  p.  193. 

The  '  Excerpta  Eusebiana '  form  the  most  considerable  frag- 
ments remaining  of  the  greek  '  Chronica '  of  Eusebius.  They 
are  found  in  cod.  reg.  2600,  a  ms.  of  saec.  15,  consisting  of 
miscellaneous  extracts,  grammatical,  historical,  etc.  They  are 
printed  in  Scaliger's  '  Thesaurus  Temporum,'  Add.  p.  224,  and 
more  fully,  in  Cramer,  Anecd.  Paris.  2.  115.  The  copy  sent 
to  Scaliger  at  Leyden  was  made  by  Charles  Labbe,  and  collated 
with  the  original  by  Casaubon.  Ep.  446:  'Contulimus,  et 
studiose  dwdypa^j^ov  ipsius  (Labb6)  cum  autographo  contendimus, 
ut  de  fide  lectionis  dubitare  non  debeas.  Quod  si  qusedam 
occurrent  mendosa,  occurrent  autem  nonnulla,  scito  non  aliter 
in  regio  codice  esse  scriptum.'  The  errors  which  Cramer 
attributes  to  Scaliger's  text  are,  according  to  Bernays,  corrections 
silently  made  by  Scaliger.  ,  See  fuller  account  of  the  find,  and 
the  delight  which  it  gave  Scaliger,  in  Bernays,  J.  J.  Scaliger, 
Bel.  no.  73,  Casaubonische  Excerpte. 


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V. 

LONDON. 

1610-1614. 

Or  possible  places  of  refuge  in  case  of  necessity,  there 
remained — England.  Had  it  been  200  years  earlier, 
nothing  would  have  been  more  simple,  than  that  a 
learned  man,  who  was  dissatisfied  in  Paris,  should  have 
migrated  to  Oxford,  for  a  time,  or  for  life.  But  now  it 
was  different.  Neither  North  nor  South  Britain  entered 
into  the  comity  of  nations,  in  such  a  way  that  natives  of  all 
countries  indiscriminately  circulated  through  our  univer- 
sities, either  as  students  or  professors,  as  they  had  once 
done,  and  as  they  still  did  in  the  other  parts  of  western 
Europe.  Casaubon  tells  Baudius  ^,  '  It  is  not  the  manner 
of  the  english  to  import  distinguished  men  of  learning 
from  other  countries.'  And  Thomson  writes  to  the 
same  ^  ;  '  Our  english  students  seldom  travel  abroad,  so 
that  you  need  not  wonder  that  you  see  so  few  of  them 
where  you  are.'  But  the  settlement  of  the  foreigner 
in  London  was  of  common  occurrence,  while,  more  often 
still,  travelled  englishmen  contracted  intimacy  and  main- 
tained correspondence  with  continental  scholars. 

Alberic  Gentilis  had  recently  died  (1608)  as  professor 
of  civil  law  at  Oxford ;  Saravia  was  still  living  as  canon  of 
Canterbury;  Theodore  Diodati  was  residing  in  Alders- 

'  Ep.  853 :  '  Non  est  mos  Anglorum,  ut  viros  eruditione  claros  aliunde 
accersant.' 

"^  Baudii  epp.  p.  514  ;  '  Angli  nostri  studiosi  raro  peregrinantur,  quare  mirum 
non  est  si  pauci  ad  vos  confluunt.'     Thomson  to  Dom.  Baudius,  1605. 

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LONDON.      1610-1614.  %e'i 

gate ;  Dr.  Raphael  Thoris,  a  native  of  Flanders,  lived 
in  Broad  Street;  and  Lobel  at  Highgate,  though  in 
extreme  old  age.  Even  at  the  universities,  in  the  first 
twenty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  more  than 
twenty  names  of  foreigners,  entered  or  graduated  at 
Oxford,  may  be  found  in  the  records. 

Besides,  there  were  other  conditions,  at  the  present 
juncture,  which  might  serve  to  recommend  England  to 
Casaubon  as  his  choice,  or  reconcile  him  to  it  as  a 
necessity. 

The  reigning  prince  was  a  lover,  if  not  of  learning,  at 
least  of  a  kind  of  theological  lore  which  borrowed  its 
lights  from  learning.  James  i.  surrounded  himself  with 
divines  whose  talk  was  of  fathers  and  councils.  '  He  doth 
wondrously  covet  learned  discourse,'  writes  lord  Howard 
to  Harington  ^,  not  indeed  of  the  grand  classical  antiquity, 
for  which  none  about  him  had  eye  or  ear,  but  the  bas- 
tard antiquity  of  the  fourth  century.  They  searched 
the  ecclesiastical  writers  for  precedents  in  support  of 
English  episcopacy,  but  they  read  them  in  the  original, 
and  this  served  to  maintain  greek  at  a  premium.  For  the 
first  and  the  last  time  in  our  annals,  the  court  was  the 
theatre  of  these  learned  discussions.  Notwithstanding 
foibles  which  have  handed  down  his  character  to  ridicule, 
neither  the  understanding  nor  the  attainments  of  James 
were  contemptible.  But  his  speech  and  action  had  a  taint 
of  puerility  which  degraded  them.  The  ironical  nickname 
of  the  British  Solomon  incurably  clings  to  the  only  English 
prince  who  has  carried  to  the  throne  knowledge  derived 
from  reading,  or  any  considerable  amount  of  literature. 
Despised  by  the  men  of  business  as  a  pedant,  James 
had  '  by  far  the  best  head  in  his  council  ^'  In  the  piteous 
condition  of  learning  and  the  learned  at  that  time,  without 
patron   or  home,  it  was  natural  that  the  eyes  of  these 

'  Harington,  Nugse  antiq.  i.  390. 
^  Spedding,  Life  of  Bacon,  4.  278. 

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364  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

outcasts  of  society  should  be  directed  to  the  only  court  in 
Europe  where  their  profession  was  in  any  degree  appre- 
ciated. And  Casaubon  was  not  wholly  without  acquaint- 
ance and  correspondents  even  among  insular  Britons. 

We  have  seen  how  his  position  at  Geneva  led  to  his 
acquaintance  with  the  'roving  Englishman,'  and  in  the 
instances  of  Wotton  and  Thomson  even  to  intimacy.  In 
1601,  Spotswood,  then  only  minister  of  Calder,  afterwards 
archbishop  of  Glasgow,  and  Andrew  Lamb,  afterwards 
bishop  of  Galloway,  came  over  to  Paris  in  the  suite  of  the 
duke  of  Lennox,  ambassador  extraordinary  from  the  king 
of  Scots.  Even  in  1601,  Casaubon  was  sufficiently  known 
to  be  sought  out  by  foreigners  of  curiosity  who  visited 
Paris.  Spotswood  brought,  not  exactly  a  message  from 
James  vi,  but  told  Casaubon  that  his  learning  and  piety 
were  well  known  to  that  learned  monarch.  Spotswood 
urged  him  to  address  a  letter  of  compliment  to  James. 
Casaubon  did  so,  and  wasted,  to  his  great  grief,  two  days 
in  penning  an  inflated  epistle  in  the  usual  style  of  tasteless 
adulation,  which  Spotswood  carried  back  and  duly  de- 
livered. James  rephed  to  his  dearest  Casaubon,  telhng 
him  that,  'besides  the  care  of  the  church,  it  was  his  fixed 
resolve  to  encourage  letters  and  learned  men,  as  he 
considered  them  the  strength,  as  well  as  the  ornament, 
of  kingdoms.'  He  concluded  by  hoping  that  Casaubon 
would  visit  him  in  Edinburgh,  now  he  was  so  near,  as 
he  would  much  prefer  talking  to  him  to  writing  to  him. 
Casaubon  could  from  this  time  reckon  a  crowned  head 
among  his  regular  correspondents.  But  James'  accession 
to  the  Enghsh  throne,  which  was  the  signal  for  others, 
who  had  overlooked  him  before,  to  fall  on  the  knee  before 
him  as  suitors,  only  deterred  Casaubon  from  further 
correspondence.  Indeed  his  stock  of  flattery  must  have 
been  exhausted,  and  the  two  letters  which  he  addressed 
in  1601  and  1602  to  'a  sovereign  such  as  Plato  had 
imagined  but  never  seen,'  consisted  of  very  commonplace 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  265 

incense.  He  not  only  did  not  join  the  throng  of  apph- 
cants,  but  -did  not  even  write  the  congratulatory  epistle, 
which  might  naturally  have  been  expected  of  him.  He 
would  not  'come  with  his  pitcher  to  Jacob's  well  as 
others  do/  as  Bacon  said  of  himself.  He  had  indeed 
soHcited,  through  Spotswood,  the  charity  of  the  king  of 
Scots,  but  not  for  himself, — for  Beza,  who  in  extreme 
age  was  without  the  most  necessary  comforts, — for  the 
Academy  of  Geneva,  which  was  struggling  to  exist  with 
an  empty  exchequer  and  no  resources  ^.  From  this  time  1 
there  were  constant  reports  among  Casaubon's  friends  in 
France  and  Germany  that  he  had  been  invited  to  England, 
long  before  any  thought  of  this  kind  had  been  entertained 
by  any  one  in  this  country.  In  1603,  L'Hermite  had 
heard  it  at  Soleure  ^.  In  1609,  Scipio  Gentilis  had  heard 
it  at  Altorf.  '  Nugae,  nugae,'  writes  Casaubon  ^  in  answer 
to  this  letter.  '  I  have  been  invited,  but  not  by  the  king,  / 
and  in  a  way  quite  different  from  what  you  suppose.' 
The  invitations  were  from  friends  to  pay  them  a  visit,  not 
offers  of  preferment  from  a  patron. 

Gradually  Casaubon  began  to  plan  a  visit;  but  a  visit 
might  be  a  reconnaissance.     He  would  see  if  the  island 
could  afford  him  a  safe  retirement  from  the  worry  and 
controversial  baiting  which  made  his  life  in  Paris  intoler- 
able.    He  mentioned  the  scheme  as  a  thing  he  had  in 
view,  to  Scaliger.     Scaliger  discouraged  it.    As  early  as 
1604  he  wrote  * : — '  Surely  you  will  not  give  up  a  cer-   ; 
tainty  for  an  uncertainty.    Settlement  in  a  foreign  country 
is  at  best  but  a  hazardous  experiment.    You  would  put 
yourself  to  the  cost  of  a  removal,   and  then  only  be 
laughed  at  by  all  the  court  monkeys  for  your  credulity.     I    ^ 
could  tell  you  much  of  the  English,  what  a  disagreeable   : 
people  they  are,  inhospitable  to  foreigners,  particularly 
churlish  to   Frenchmen,   against  whom   they  cherish  a 

'  Ep.  343.  "  Burney  Mss.  364,  L'Hermite  to  Casaubon,  1603. 

'  Ep.  630.  *  Scalig.  Epp.  pp.  241.  253. 

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266  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

traditional  antipathy.  If  it  be  in  the  fates  that  you  are 
to  settle  in  England,  at  least  do  not  precipitate  the  event. 
Wait  till  you  are  called ;  do  not  offer  yourself,  and  sell 
your  venture  at  as  high  a  price  as  you  can.' 

Scaliger's  advice  was  dictated  by  his  own  feeUngs.  He 
overlooked  one  attraction  which  the  English  invitation 
contained  for  Casaubon,  because  it  would  have  been  no 
attraction  for  himself  In  1604,  when  Scaliger's  advice  as 
above  was  given,  Casaubon  had  hardly  begun  that  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  calvinist  worship  which  in  1610  had 
grown  into  a  serious  grievance  to  his  conscience.  He 
had  been  gradually  worked  into  this  state  of  mind  by  the 
necessity  of  daily  encountering  the  catholic  disputants. 
The  ministers  of  his  own  communion  scouted  antiquity, 
of  which  they  were  ignorant,  and  which  Casaubon  re- 
garded as  the  only  arbiter  of  the  quarrel.  Books  fell  in 
his  way  written  on  this  side  of  the  channel,  in  which  he 
met  with  a  line  of  argument  very  different  from  the  un- 
instructed  but  presumptuous  dogmatism  of  the  calvinist 
ministers.  He  found  to  his  surprise  and  delight  that 
there  were  others  besides  himself  who  could  respect  the 
authority  of  the  fathers,  without  surrendering  their  reason 
to  the  dicta  of  the  papal  church.  The  young  anglo-catholic 
school  which  was  then  forming  in  England  took  precisely 
the  ground  which  Casaubon  had  been  led  to  take  against 
Du  Perron. 

The  change  of  face  which  English  theology  effected  in 
the  reign  of  James  i.  is,  to  our  generation,  one  of  the  best 
known  facts  in  the  history  of  our  church.  But  it  is  often 
taken  for  granted  that  this  revolution  was  brought  about 
by  the  ascendancy  of  one  man,  whose  name  is  often  used 
to  denominate  the  school  as  the  Laudian  school  of  divines. 
Laud  was  the  political  leader,  but  in  this  capacity  only  the 
agent  of  a  mode  of  thinking  which  he  did  not  invent. 
Anglo-catholic  theology  is  not  a  system  of  which  any 
individual   thinker    can   claim    the    invention.      It   arose 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  267 

necessarily,  or  by  natural  development,  out  of  the  contro- 
versy with  the  papal  advocates  as  soon  as  that  controversy 
was  brought  out  of  the  domain  of  pure  reason  into  that 
of  learning.  That  this  peculiar  compromise,  or  via  media, 
between  romanism  and  Calvinism  developed  itself  in  Eng- 
land, and  nowhere  else  in  Christendom,  is  owing  to  causes 
which  this  is  not  the  place  to  investigate.  But  that  it  was 
a  product,  not  of  english  soil,  but  of  theological  learning 
wherever  sufficient  learning  existed,  is  evidenced  by  the 
history  of  Casaubon's  mind,  who  now  found  himself,  in 
1 610,  an  anglican  ready  made,  as  the  mere  effect  of  reading 
the  fathers  to  meet  Du  Perron's  incessant  attacks. 

England  thus  seemed  to  open  to  Isaac  Casaubon  not 
only  an  asylum  from  the  teasing  persecution  of  the 
convertisseurs,  but  a  church  whose  doctrines  and  minis- 
trations were  more  congenial  than  were  afforded  him  in 
his  own  communion,  and  which  in  a  great  measure 
realised  the  ideal  he  had  formed  from  the  study  of  catholic 
antiquity. 

His  wish,  formerly  entertained,  to  visit  Venice  in  search 
of  the  greek  church,  now  gave  place  to  a  desire  to  visit 
England,  and  see  for  himself  the  english  church.  He 
mentioned  his  wish  to  the  king,  and  begged  leave  of  ab- 
sence. Henri  always  put  him  off,  wishing  the  irrevocable 
step  of  conversion  to  be  taken  before  he  trusted  him  out 
of  his  sight.  But  Casaubon,  though  obliged  to  defer  its 
execution,  persisted  in  his  intention.  On  April  20  he 
wrote  to  James  i,  intimating  clearly  the  wish  at  which  he 
had  before  only  distantly  hinted.  But  he  could  not  leave, 
even  for  a  visit,  without  an  open  rupture  with  a  master 
to  whom  he  was  bound  by  duty,  gratitude,  and  interest. 

On  May  14,  1610,  these  bonds  were  severed  in  a  fatal 
moment  by  the  knife  of  a  wretched  fanatic.  The  first 
moments  of  terror  were  passed  by  Casaubon  at  Grigny, 
where  he  was  when  the  news  reached  him.  The  king 
was  wounded.    The  evening  was  spent  in  dreadful  sus- 

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2,68  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

pense.  Next  morning  a  special  messenger  sent  out  by 
Madame  Casaubon  brought  the  real  truth.  Death  had 
followed  instantaneously  upon  the  second  stroke  of  the 
assassin's  knife,  but  the  secret  had  been  so  well  kept  that 
Lestoile  tells  us  ^  that  at  5  p.m.  it  was  only  at  the  Louvre 
it  was  known  that  the  king  was  dead.  Casaubon  deter- 
mined, whatever  the  danger  might  be,  to  share  it  with  his 
friends,  and  immediately  returned  to  Paris  ^.  The  terror 
of  the  huguenots  was  sufficiently  visible  in  the  irresolution 
of  Sully.  He  set  off,  on  the  14th,  to  drive  to  the  Louvre, 
thinking  the  king  only  wounded.  But  finding  he  was 
dead,  he  dared  not  show  himself,  and  retired  to  the  arsenal. 
It  was  not  till  the  next  morning  that  he  ventured  to  ap- 
pear in  his  place  at  the  council.  The  protestants  had 
expected  the  mob  to  rise  and  repeat  '72.  No  movement 
of  the  sort  took  place.  The  Parisians  were  stunned  for 
the  moment  by  the  greatness  of  the  blow. 

The  assassination  took  place  on  May  14.  On  the  17th 
Du  Perron  returned  to  the  charge.  Casaubon  was  sent 
for,  and  had  to  hear  a  lecture  upon  the  true  sense  of  some 
of  the  passages  usually  relied  on  against  transubstantiation. 
The  cardinal  saw  that  if  he  were  to  have  Casaubon  it  must 
be  now.  The  tie  that  had  bound  him  to  France  was 
severed.  He  knew  Casaubon's  cherished  wish  to  visit 
England,  and  foreboded  in  what  the  visit  would  end. 

Both  parties  felt  that  the  crisis  of  the  long  struggle  was 
come.  Casaubon,  simple-minded  as  he  was,  must  have 
understood  that  he  was  now  at  the  mercy  of  the  court.  The 
alternative  offered  him  now,  whatever  it  might  have  been 
before,  was  conversion  or  dismissal.  But  the  cardinal, 
with  a  fine  tact,  continued  to  treat  the  question  as  one  of 
pure  learning,  and  love  of  truth.  He  makes  no  allusion 
to   Casaubon's  altered  circumstances,  avoiding  thus  any 

'  Registre-journal,  p.  586. 

'  Ep.  69s  ;  '  Ut  quicquid  bonis  futurum  esset,  sors  illorum  mihi  cum  bonis 
esset  communis.' 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  369 

alarm  to  his  conscience  or  his  pride.  Casaubon,  on  his 
part,  though  aware  that  the  bread  of  his  family  is  at  stake, 
and  though  agitated  to  distraction  by  the  complication  in 
which  he  finds  himself  entangled,  exhibits  himself  to  us,  not 
only  in  his  familiar  letters,  but  in  the  secret  pages  of  the 
diary,  endeavouring,  with  an  honest  and  honourable  soul, 
to  find  out  on  which  side  his  actual  opinions  placed  him.  It 
is  clear  that  his  struggle  is  not  between  his  conscience 
and  his  preferment,  it  is  an  intellectual  struggle,  an 
endeavour  to  choose  between  the  rival  churches. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  historians,  looking  at  the  broad 
outline  of  things,  should  have  fixed  on  Casaubon  the 
charge  of  'wavering.'  Meric  has  replied  to  the  round 
assertion  of  Heribert  Rosweyd  that  his  father  Isaac  had 
promised  the  cardinal  to  make  his  recantation  at  Whitsun- 
tide, but  was  anticipated  by  the  english  invitation.  The 
only  answer  which  this  unsupported  assertion  admitted  of, 
or  deserved,  was  a  flat  contradiction.  It  was  simply  a  lie 
with  a  circumstance,  such  as  were  hatched  by  the  dozen  in 
the  Jesuit  colleges  of  that  period.  But  impartial  historians, 
e.  g.  Hallam^,  have  spoken  of  Casaubon's  'wavering'  as 
a  fact.  If  there  be  a  moment  in  his  life  on  which  the 
charge  of  having  wavered  can  be  fixed,  it  is  the  moment  at 
which  we  are  now  arrived.  Yet  at  this  very  moment,  the 
perversion  of  his  eldest  son,  John,  of  which  he  heard 
August  14,  drew  from  him  the  bitter  cry  of  pain  which  is 
recorded  under  that  date.  The  heart  from  which  that  cry 
of  paternal  anguish  was  wrung  was  in  no  mood  to  fraternise 
with  the  crew  of  intriguers  by  whom  the  blow  had  been 
dealt.  What  on  a  cursory  inspection  of  Casaubon's  remains 
looks  like  wavering  will,  I  think,  be  found  on  a  closer  view 
to  be  a  more  complex  mental  state.  He  was  indeed  in  an 
intellectual  difficulty,  but  it  was  that  he  found  his  own 
opinions  coincide  neither  with  Calvinism,  nor  with 
ultramontanism.     He   had   been  forced  by  reading,   and 

'  Hallam,  Lit.  Hist.  2.  302. 

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ayo  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

controversy,  into  a  middle  position  between  the  two, 
and  did  not  yet  know  how  far  the  position  thus  created 
was  a  tenable  one,  or  that  it  was  shared  by  others 
besides  himself.  Circumstances  were  preparing  his  re- 
moval to  a  country,  in  which,  to  his  surprise,  he  found 
a  whole  national  church  encamped  on  the  ground  on 
which  he  had  believed  himself  to  be  an  isolated  ad- 
venturer. 

Meantime  he  had  escaped  into  the  country,  and  hid 
himself  in  his  retreat  at  Grigny  as  much  as  his  duties  in 
the  library  would  allow.  The  cardinal,  too,  had  graver 
business  to  call  him  off  from  his  pursuit  of  Casaubon. 
Things  in  France  were  rapidly  going  in  the  direction 
which  had  been  foreseen.  The  first  shock  had  sobered 
parties  and  inspired  a  momentary  patriotism.  On  June  i, 
Casaubon  '^  wrote  that  the  hand  of  providence  was  visible 
in  the  unanimity  of  all  the  great  men  and  nobles  to  fly 
to  the  aid  of  their  country.  Before  another  month  his 
language  is  changed.  On  June  25  he  writes  to  Heinsius  ^: 
'  The  most  grievous  thing  to  me  is  the  murder  not  being 
pursued  in  the  way  of  justice  as  it  ought  to  be.  It  is 
notorious  whose  teaching  it  was  that  instigated  the  fatal 
deed,  who  they  are  who  have  proclaimed  regicide  as  a 
principle  ;  yet  we  sleep  on  in  utter  indifference.  I  cannot 
express  to  you  the  anguish  of  mind  from  which  I  am  now 
suffering.  It  is  not  mere  regard  for  my  own  individual 
prospects  which  tortures  me,  and  makes  me  pass  sleepless 
nights,  but  a  sense  of  the  public  calamity  which  is  fallen 
on  my  country.' 

On  June  15  the  engHsh  embassy  had  written^  to  the 
same  effect:  'The  duke  D'Espernon  doth  act,  if  not  the 
chiefest,  at  the  least  the  most  busy  and  intruding  part  in 
this  comedy,— I  pray  God  it  do  not  prove  a  tragedy, — 
who,  joyned  with  the  count  of  Soissons  and  the  jesuites, 
together  with  some  of  the  greatest  officers,  doth  begin  by 
'  Ep.  674.  2  j-p  g^g_ 

"  Winwood,  Memorials,  3.  189,  Beaulieu  to  Trumbull. 

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v.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  271 

their  meanes  to  encroach  upon  the  chiefest  authority  and 
administration.'  To  the  same  effect  Casaubon  ^  writes  on 
September  6 :  '  Things  here  are  come  to  that  pass  that  we 
shall  all  soon  be  mere  slaves  of  the  loyolites.  I  know  my 
countrymen  well  enough  to  know  that  they  will  not  submit  to 
the  yoke  without  some  convulsive  spasms ;  but  submit  they 
will  in  the  end ;  the  powers  that  be  are  engaged  on  that 
side.'  Nor  was  it  only  the  court  which  was  inclining  to 
the  roman  and  Spanish  interest.  The  passions  of  the  mob 
were  engaged  in  the  cause,  and  in  the  hot  nights  of  mid- 
summer the  panic  of  the  huguenots  was  renewed.  If 
there  were  an  outbreak,  they  knew  that  they  would  be  the 
first  victims.  The  Jesuit  writers  affirm  that  these  terrors 
were  feigned.  They  may  have  been  unreasonable — a 
panic  always  is — but  they  were  real.  Casaubon's  diary 
records  that  on  July  19  he  was  unable  to  do  anything, 
owing  to  his  friends  flocking  in  terror  to  his  house,  which 
was  in  the  most  dangerous  (the  latin)  quarter.  On  July 
XI  Beaulieu  ^  wrote  from  Paris :  '  There  have  been  such 
alarms  taken  these  three  or  four  nights  by  those  of  the 
weaker  side,  that  the  duke  of  Bouillon  and  the  prince  of 
Conde  .  .  .  did  sit  up  with  all  their  household  in  arms 
almost  all  those  nights  long.  ...  A  man  can  see  nothing 
almost  in  the  streets  but  carrying  and  providing  of  arms 
in  every  house,  as  it  were  upon  assured  expectation  of 
imminent  disorder.' 

It  was  in  the  thick  of  these  alarms  that  the  decisive 
invitation  to  England  reached  Casaubon's  hands  (July  20). 
It  was  an  official  invitation  from  the  archbishop  of 
Canterbury^.  As  far  back  as  March,  or  earlier,  definite 
proposals  had  been  sent  him  in  an  unofBcial  way  through 
sir  George  Carew,  the  ex-ambassador,  in  whose  household 
Philippa  had  died.  The  archbishop  (Bancroft)  now  writes 
himself,  reiterating  the  terms  which  had  been  before 
proposed.     Casaubon    was    assured    'that    his    coming 

'  Ep.  684.  '  Winwood's  Mem.  3.  191. 

'  Bui-ney  Mss.  263,  printed  ap.  Russell,  Ephem.  p.  1097 

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373  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

among  them  would  be  welcomed  by  them  all;  that  a 
prebend  of  Canterbury,  then  actually  vacant,  was  reserved 
for  him ;  and  as  the  income  of  the  stall  might  not  be 
sufficient  for  his  maintenance,  a  promise  was  added  that 
it  might  be  increased  from  other  sources.  He  might 
come  over  and  see  for  himself.  Or,  if  he  chose  to  throw 
himself  for  good  upon  the  generosity  of  the  king,  and  to 
rely  upon  the  assurances  now  given  him  by  the  arch- 
bishop, he  might  remove  his  family  at  once.  In  the  latter 
case  he  was  to  draw  upon  the  english  embassy  for  ^^30  for 
the  expenses  of  the  journey.  Any  how,  when  he  comes  he 
would  find  the  archbishop  ready  to  do  his  utmost  in  his 
behalf.  Finally,  the  archbishop,  while  leaving  the  choice 
entirely  to  Casaubon's  own  discretion,  seemed  to  recom- 
mend a  private  retreat,  in  preference  to  a  public  with- 
drawal from  the  French  service. 

The  terms  of  this  communication  were  somewhat 
vague,  but  Casaubon  was  able  to  put  an  exact  value  upon 
them  by  the  aid  of  sir  G.  Carew's  letter  of  March  12. 
The  archbishop,  it  will  be  observed,  speaks  of  the  king's 
generosity,  and  the  archbishop's  honour.  This  was 
delicate,  as  the  provision  designed  for  him  was  a  con- 
tribution to  be  made  up  out  of  the  bishops'  own  purses. 
The  prebendal  stall  was  valued  at  ;^88,  besides  house,  fuel, 
and  corn,  and  the  bishops  were  to  subscribe  among 
themselves  what  would  make  it  up  to  equal  what  he  was 
getting  in  France,  till  he  could  be  further  provided  for  out 
of  church  revenues.  The  king  does  not  appear  to  have 
promised  anything,  though  he  may  have  intended  to  give 
him  something  more  in  the  church.  The  invitation  was 
from  the  archbishop,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
king  himself  was  promoting  the  step.  As  early  as  1608, 
Bancroft  had  carried  a  copy  of  the  '  De  libertate  eccle- 
siastica '  to  James,  who  had  been  so  delighted  with  it,  that 
for  many  days  he  could  talk  of  nothing  but  Casaubon  ^ 

'  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  141. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  1']'^ 

The  stalls  at  Canterbury  were  not  of  the  archbishop's 
collation.  But  Bancroft  was  not  unwilling  to  be  the 
channel  of  communication,  as  it  cost  him  nothing,  and  it 
was  well  understood  in  England  that  Casaubon  was  as 
little  inclined  to  favour  Bancroft's  enemies,  the  puritans, 
as  the  king's  enemies,  the  ultramontanes.  He  viewed 
Casaubon,  and  no  other  view  was  taken  of  him  by  the 
other  persons  concerned,  the  king  excepted,  as  an  instru- 
ment of  controversy,  which  it  was  desirable  to  enlist  in 
the  service  of  the  english  church.  James  himself,  who 
was  just  now  very  busy  with  pamphlet  writing,  and  who 
was  commissioning  his  ambassador  at  the  Hague  ^ '  to 
find  some  smart  Jesuit  with  a  quick  and  nimble  spirit ' 
to  write  against  Vorstius,  doubtless  designed  employ- 
ment of  the  same  sort  for  Casaubon.  But  he  also  pro- 
mised himself  much  delectation  from  this  addition  to  his 
sanhedrim. 

After  the  receipt  of  the  official  invitation,  Casaubon  still 
lingered  some  months  in  France.  The  delay  was  caused 
by  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  the  necessary  permission 
from  the  court.  He  did  not  think  proper  to  make  the 
clandestine  departure  which  Bancroft  had  suggested. 
He  applied  for,  and  at  last  obtained,  a  furlough  in  form. 
It  was  understood  ^  that  he  was  to  make  a  visit  of  a  few 
weeks,  leaving  his  family  and  his  library  behind  ;  and  ^  he 
solemnly  engaged  himself  to  return  whenever  he  should 
be  summoned. 

The  ambassador  extraordinary,  lord  Wotton  of  Marley, 
who  was  on  his  return  to  England,  offered  him  a  place  in 
his  suite.  Besides  a  free  passage,  he  thus  enjoyed  many 
advantages  above  the  ordinary  traveller.  Yet  his  suffer- 
ings were  still  such  as  to  make  us  wonder  at  the  readiness 
with  which  our  ancestors  met  the  dangers  and  horrors  of 

'  Winwood's  Mem.  3.  311. 

'  Ep.  864  :  '  Qui  paucas  hebdomadas  me  hsesurum  in  Britannia  spoponderam.' 

'  Ep.  700. 

T 

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274  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

the  channel.  We  abridge  his  own  graphic  narrative  from 
the  diary  and  the  letters  to  his  family  ^ 

The  cavalcade  were  eight  days  on  the  road  between 
Paris  and  Calais,  which  they  reached  October  15.  Here 
they  were  detained,  waiting  for  the  king's  ship,  which  was 
to  be  sent  to  bring  over  the  ambassador. 

'The  17th  of  October  was  Sunday,  when  I  would  fain 
have  joined  public  worship,  but  had  to  think  of  somewhat 
else.  For  my  lord  had  ordered  two  transports,  one  for 
our  baggage,  the  other  for  the  horses;  and  the  whole 
morning  was  spent  in  getting  them  on  board.  As  the 
ship  of  the  royal  navy  did  not  arrive,  my  lord  was  much 
in  doubt  whether  he  should  wait  for  it,  or  should  hire  one 
that  lay  in  the  harbour,  where  there  were  some  150 
vessels,  small,  and  mostly  fishing  boats.  As  we  could 
hardly  hope  to  set  sail  this  day,  my  lord  bade  us  sit  down 
to  dinner.  Himself  and  his  lady  would  not  eat,  in  case 
they  might,  after  all,  have  to  go  on  board.  We  sat  down 
and  had  gotten  to  about  the  second  course,  when  word 
was  brought  that  the  wind  had  now  become  dead  against 
the  passage  to  England.  Upon  this  the  ambassador  and 
his  lady  also  sat  down.  After  dinner  I  walked  down  to 
the  harbour,  and  had  hardly  returned  to  the  inn,  when 
I  found  the  face  of  things  changed,  and  that  we  were  to 
sail  at  once.  A  ship  had  come  from  England,  not  indeed 
a  king's  ship,  but  one  of  large  burden,  too  big  to  enter  the 
harbour,  and  was  now  at  anchor  a  league  out  to  sea. 
We  were  rowed  oif  to  it  in  boats,  I  having  wrapped  my- 
self up  in  my  galligaskins  against  the  cold.  It  was  about 
two  when  we  got  On  board,  and  the  wind  being  favour- 
able, we  hoped  to  be  at  Dover  in  about  three  or  four 
hours.  Joyful  therefore,  I  stepped  on  to  the  big  ship,  the 
first  vessel  of  any  size  I  had  ever  seen,  with  three  sails 
and  the  royal  arms  of  England  on  a  silken  flag.  We  got 
under  way,  our  hopes  mounting  high,  when  on  a  sudden 

'  Ephem.  p.  769,  compared  with  ep.  691. 

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v.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  375 

the  wind  veered  round  dead  against  us.  Do  what  we 
could,  we  could  not  make  head  against  it,  and  night 
coming  on,  the  captain  knew  not  whereabouts  we  were. 
One  while  we  were  said  to  be  within  ten  miles  of  the 
English  coast ;  then  back  at  Calais  or  Peronne,  or  I  know 
not  where.  Having  never  been  at  sea  before,  I  was 
badly  sea  sick  from  the  first,  and  for  some  hours  suffered 
much  from  pain  and  faintness.  Nothing  could  exceed  the 
kindness  shown  me  by  my  lord  and  lady  and  by  many  of 
the  suite.  They  took  me  down  into  my  lord's  private 
cabin  and  placed  me  in  his  bed.  At  last  the  violent  rain 
driving  my  lord  and  lady  off  the  deck,  I  was  obliged  to  be 
removed  to  an  aftercabin  with  many  charges  that  I  should 
be  taken  care  of.  Here  I  could  have  done  pretty  well  but 
for  the  plague  of  mischievous  beasts;  which  came  out  of 
the  sailors'  clothes  on  which  I  lay.  To  me  and  all  of  us 
the  night  seems  incredibly  long,  and  I  understood  the 
force  of  the  words  in  the  Acts,  "  they  wished  for  the  day." 
When  at  last  we  reached  the  harbour  we  had  a  narrow 
escape  of  being  wrecked  against  it  in  entering  it,  the 
prow  of  the  vessel  being  heavily  crushed.  But  we  es- 
caped harm  and  were  at  last  safely  housed  in  our  inn.' 

From  Dover  his  first  thought  was  to  write  home  a  full 
account  of  the  perils  he  had  braved.  He  had  already 
written  from  Amiens  to  his  son  John,  and  his  nephew 
Isaac.  He  repeats  his  cautions,  and  puts  precise 
questions,  to  which  he  demands  precise  answers.  ^ '  As 
you  love  me  and  respect  my  commands,  I  charge  you  to 
let  me  hear  from  you  at  London  how  my  wife  is,  and  how 
she  takes  my  absence.  My  books  and  papers  you  will 
take  especial  care  of.  The  king's  library,  Isaac,  is  in 
your  individual  keeping.  Do  not  be  too  easy  in  ad- 
mitting anyone  into  the  room,  and  never  more  than  one 
person  at  a  time.  Explain  to  monseigneur  de  Thou  how 
it  happened  that  that  volume  I  borrowed  of  him  was  not 

'  Ep.  691. 
T  2 

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376  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

returned  before  my  departure,  and  let  no  one  touch  the 
book  except  by  his  orders.  Tell  your  mother  that  those 
English  coins  which  Madame  Gentilis  let  me  have,  and 
which  I  wrote  to  say  I  had  left  behind  in  my  study,  I 
found  in  my  chest,  in  a  corner  where  I  had  stowed  them 
myself  ....  Let  me  have  an  account  how  Gentille, 
Jeanne,  and  Anne  behave;  as  for  Paul,  I  persuade 
myself  he  is  already  grown  quite  a  scholar.  Tell  me 
also  about  Marie,  whom  I  did  not  embrace  at  parting, 
and  about  the  rest  of  the  children ;  about  all  the  Des- 
bordes  family.  Has  my  wife  been  to  Grigny?  What  has 
she  done  about  that  rascally  bailiff?  In  short,  tell  me 
everything,  public  or  private,  which  I  ought  to  know.' 

At  Canterbury  he  was  detained  some  days  by  the 
hospitality  of  his  travelling  companion,  Benjamin  Carier. 
Carier  was  one  of  the  prebendaries,  and  was  now  proud 
to  introduce  Casaubon  to  the  chapter,  of  which  it  was 
intended  that  he  should  become  one.  It  is  characteristic 
of  Casaubon's  irritability  and  placability,  that  he  now  com- 
mends the  obliging  entertainment  he  met  with  from  Carier, 
as  warmly  as  he  had  before  grumbled  at  his  selfishness 
during  the  journey.  Carier  was  one  of  the  high  church 
party,  and  boasts  to  Casaubon^  that  he  always  says  the 
morning  and  evening  prayer,  as  the  law  prescribes.  He 
it  was  who  afterwards  received  Casaubon's  dividend,  as 
prebendary,  and  accounted  for  it  to  him. 

Carier's  kindness  may  not  have  been  altogether  dis- 
interested. The  deanery  of  Rochester  becoming  vacant 
a  year  later,  he  sought  to  avail  himself  of  Casaubon's 
supposed  interest  at  court  to  get  it  for  him.  He  pleaded 
that  'the  deanery  was  a  very  poor  one,  and  that  he, 
holding  the  living  of  Thornham  in  the  neighbourhood, 
had  advantages  for  the  exercise  of  hospitality  at  Roches- 
ter.' Bancroft  was  not  averse  to  pluralities ;  '  a  doublet 
is  necessary  in  cold  weather,'  he  is  reported  to  have  said. 

*  Burney  mss.  363.  Carier  to  Casaubon,  161 1. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  a77 

But  the  deanery  was  given  to  Milbourne,  and  shortly 
afterwards  Carier,  being  abroad,  caused  great  scandal, 
in  high  church  circles,  by  going  over.  He  was  a  man  of 
more  than  common  reading,  and  possessed  some  books, 
many  of  which  were  new  to  Casaubon,  who  did  not  neglect 
the  opportunity  of  going  through  them.  Among  others  \ 
he  mentions  the  Calvino-Turcismus,  in  which  Rainolds, 
the  roman  catholic  brother  of  the  president  of  Corpus, 
made  out  an  ingenious  parallel  between  the  calvinists  and 
mahometans,  ^*  a  book,  on  account  of  its  style  and  recondite 
learning,  by  no  means  to  be  despised.' 

Casaubon  was  delighted  with  Canterbury,  both  the 
place  and  the  people  ^,  though  the  church  services  seemed 
unnatural  to  him,  and  he  felt  it  odd  to  be  keeping  a  saint's 
day — S.  Luke's — which  happened  during  his  stay. 

On  October  29,  he  set  off  for  London,  and  was  hos- 
pitably received  at  the  deanery  of  S.  Paul's  by  Overall,  as 
had  been  arranged  for  him  by  Carier.  No  time  was  lost 
in  presenting  him  to  the  archbishop,  to  whom  he  was 
taken  the  very  day  of  his  arrival.  He  was  most  graciously 
received  by  the  venerable  prelate,  who  detained  him  some 
time  in  conversation  ^.  It  was  at  once  intimated  to  him 
that  if  he  could  make  up  his  mind  to  stay  in  the  country, 
it  was  the  wish  of  the  king  and  the  bishops  that  he  should 
do  so.  Two  days  afterwards,  he  paid  a  second  visit  to 
Lambeth,  and  this  was  the  last  time  he  was  to  see 
Bancroft,  who  died  a  few  days  after  this  interview, 
November  12.  In  him  Casaubon  thought  he  had  lost  a 
special  friend  and  patron  *.  He  did  not  promise  himself 
the  same  friendliness  from  the  new  archbishop.    Abbot 


^  Ephem.  p.  779. 

"  Ep.  1045 ;  '  Cum  hospitis  mei,  turn  aliorum  prsestantissimorum  virorum 
eximia  humanitate  ita  sura  captus,  et  loci  elegantia  atque  amoenitate  sic  quotidie 
oblector  .  .  .' 

^  Ephem.  p.  781 :  '  Fuit  mihi  cum  eo  multus  sermo.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  797  :  '  Quantara  jacturam  fecerim  in  morte  archiepiscopi  videor 
incipere  intelligere.' 

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278  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

had  had  no  share  in  inviting  Casaubon  to  England,  and 
his  ^'behaviour  and  carriage  toward  the  greatest  nobihty 
in  the  kingdom,  was,'  what  Laud  thought,  'very  insolent 
and  inexcusable.'  In  this  respect  Casaubon  was  agreeably 
disappointed.  Abbot  was  uniformly  friendly  to  him,  sent 
for  him  often  to  Lambeth  or  to  Croydon,  made  him  a  present 
regularly  at  Christmas,  and  consented  to  be  godfather  to 
a  son,  James,  the  only  child  born  to  him  in  England. 

The  other  bishops  vied  with  each  other  in  welcoming 
him,  and  feting  him,  in  the  hospitable  english  way,  by 
entertaining  him  at  dinner.  Overall  not  only  took  in  Isaac 
himself  at  the  deanery,  but  also  his  wife  and  family  when 
they  arrived.  Here  he  made  his  home  for  the  first  twelve 
months,  from  October  1610  to  September  161  t,  though  it 
seems  probable  ^  that,  at  least  during  the  dean's  absence, 
who  had  a  house  out  of  town  at  Islington^,  Casaubon 
provided  his  own  household  expenses.  Nor  did  their 
civility  wear  out  with  the  novelty.  We  find  him,  up  to 
the  last,  dining  with  them  both  privately*,  and  on  their 
grand  occasions  ^,  and  presents  are  sent  by  them  at 
Christmas  to  himself  or  to  Madame  Casaubon  ^. 

The  bishop  of  Ely  was  able  to  report  to  the  king  that 
Casaubon's  reputation  was  borne  out  by  his  conversation. 
James  was  impatient  to  make  trial  of  the  new  man,  and 
ordered  him  to  be  brought  out  to  him  to  Theobald's. 
Casaubon,  nervously  solicitous  about  the  etiquette  of  the 
english  court,  thought  that  no  one  less  than  the  archbishop 
could  instruct  him,  and  went  out  to  Lambeth  to  ask  how 
he  was  to  behave.  Bancroft,  who  must  have  been  amused 
at  his  simplicity,  made  him  stay  to  dinner,  and  calmed  his 
fears,  gratifying  him  at  the  same  time  by  the  marked 
attention  he  showed  him.     On   November  8,   Casaubon 


1  Clarendon,  Life,  i.  65.  »  Ephem.  p.  827. 

■•  Burney  mss.  364.  ••  Ephem.  p.  978. 

^  Ephem.  p.  1049.  «  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  337. 


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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  279 

was  taken  out  to  Theobald's  in  Lord  Dunbar's  carriage  ^. 
Casaubon  met  the  gracious  reception  which  he  had  been 
led  to  expect,  and  had  the  honour  of  being  the  principal 
figure  in  the  circle  which  stood  round  the  royal  chair  at 
supper. 

James'  learned  repasts  have  been  often  described, 
among  others,  by  Hacket  ^ :  '  The  reading  of  some  books 
before  him  was  very  frequent,  while  he  was  at  his  repast ; 
he  collected  knowledge  by  variety  of  questions  which  he 
carved  out  to  the  capacity  of  different  persons.  Methought 
his  hunting  humour  was  not  off,  while  the  learned  stood 
about  him  at  his  board ;  he  was  ever  in  chase  after  some 
disputable  doubt,  which  he  would  wind  and  turn  about 
with  the  most  stabbing  objections  that  ever  I  heard ;  and 
was  as  pleasant  and  fellow-like  in  all  these  discourses,  as 
with  his  huntsmen  in  the  field.  Those  who  were  ripe  and 
weighty  in  their  answers,  were  ever  designed  for  some 
place  of  credit  or  profit.'  Seat  and  food  were  for  sacred 
majesty  only.  It  is  ill  talking  between  a  full  man  and  a 
fasting,  says  the  proverb ;  scarcely  less  so  between  one 
sitting  and  one  standing.  It  happened  this  first  day,  that 
the  king  was  taken  up  with  a  new  french  pamphlet  against 
himself.  The  pamphlet  was  anonymous,  and  he  was 
attributing  it  to  the  one  name  best  known  to  him,  that  of 
cardinal  Du  Perron.  Casaubon  was  able  to  undeceive 
him,  to  tell  him  the  name  of  the  real  author,  as  well  as 
something  about  him.  James  was  well  satisfied,  and 
Casaubon  was  ordered  to  attend  again  the  next  day. 


1  Sir  George  Home,  cr.  160s  earl  of  Dunbar,  at  this  time,  1610,  keeper  of 
the  privy  purse,  the  king's  declared  favourite,  of  whom  Hume  says,  Hist,  of 
Engl,  that  'he  was  one  of  the  wisest  and  most  virtuous,  though  the  least 
powerful,  of  all  those  whom  he  honoured  with  that  distinction.'  Dunbar's 
influence,  however,  overbore  that  of  the  whole  bench  of  bishops  on  one 
memorable  occasion,  when  he  got  Abbot  promoted  to  Canterbury  instead  of 
Andrewes. 

2  Life  of  AbP.  Williams,  pt.  1,  pp.  38,  227  ;  cf.  Jessopp,  Life  of  Donne,  p. 
xxviii. 


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38o  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Casaubon  was  rapidly  established  in  the  royal  favour. 
The  king  was  insatiable  of  his  conversation,  was  always 
sending  for  him  and  keeping  him  talking  for  hours.  James 
talked  well  himself,  liked  a  good  hearer,  but  was  ready, 
which  is  not  always  the  case  with  good  talkers,  to  listen  in 
return.  In  graver  conversation  he  was  perhaps  even 
superior  to  what  he  was  in  light  talk  ^.  '  He  loved  specu- 
lative discourse  upon  moral  and  political  subjects ;  and  his 
talent  for  conducting  such  discussions  is  a  frequent  theme 
of  admiration,  not  only  among  his  courtiers,  but  in  the 
unsuborned  writings  of  the  foreigners  who  visited  him.' 
Casaubon  on  his  part  was  a  ready  talker^,  and  if  his  french 
was  not  good,  his  matter  was  inexhaustible.  His  memory 
supplied  him  with  an  endless  store  of  diversified  informa- 
tion on  the  topics  which  James  liked  best.  The  conversa- 
tion was  conducted  in  french,  which  James  spoke  fluently^, 
though  we  may  suppose  with  a  scotch  accent.  Casaubon, 
who  never  could  accomplish  english,  and  was  compelled 
with  the  bishops  to  stumble  on  in  latin,  found  his  tongue 
set  free  in  the  court  circle  *. 

Of  these  conversations,  serious  or  gossiping,  he  has 
only  recorded  one,  and  that  very  scantily  ^  It  was  one  of 
the  first;  in  November  1610,  on  the  day  on  which  the 
king  commemorated  by  a  solemn  service  his  delivery  at 
Gowrie  house.  The  conversation  was  directed  by  the 
king  to  general  literature.  Of  Tacitus,  James  said  they 
were  wrong,  who  thought  him  the  one  historian,  who  was 
a  master  of  political  wisdom.  Casaubon  was  delighted  to 
reply  that  in  his  late  preface  to  Polybius,  he  had  passed  a 
similar  judgment;   and  that  the   historical  lesson   to   be 

'  Chambers,  Life  of  James  i,  a.  154. 

'  Thorii  Narratio :  '  sermonis  promptissimi.' 

"  Ephem.  p.  931 :  '  Hodie  regis  pietatem,  doctrinam  et  facultatem  utriusque 
sermonis  Gallici  et  Latini  nobis  mirari  licuit.' 

*  For  the  king's  conversation  with  La  Boderie  about  Casaubon,  see  Carte 
Papers  86;  Boderie  2  fo.  471;  La  Boderie  to  Villeroy,  Londres,  17  Nov., 
1610.  •-  Ep.  704. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  281 

learnt  from  Polybius  was  far  more  instructive.  The  king 
blamed  Plutarch  for  his  partiality  against  Csesar. 

In  Commines  he  noticed  his  flippancy,  and  his  hatred  of 
the  english.  Casaubon,  whose  idea  of  a  king's  conver- 
sation was  formed  upon  that  of  Henri  iv,  wise  and  ruse, 
but  one  who  had  at  most  read  Amyot's  french  Plutarch, 
was  astounded  by  finding  here  a  king  who  could  pronounce 
opinions  original,  and  not  unjust,  on  classical  authors, 
which  he  had  read  himself.  M.  Sainte-Beuve  ^  suggests 
that  James  disliked  Commines  for  his  constitutional  opinions 
in  favour  of  the  rights  of  the  etats,  and  adds  that  there  is  no 
levity  in  the  judgment  which  Commines  passed  on  english 
institutions.  In  the  king's  remark  on  Tacitus  we  may 
probably  trace  a  reminiscence  of  Buchanan,  and  a  revolt 
against  the  notions  of  his  master.  Casaubon,  when  he 
wrote  the  passage  in  his  preface  to  Polybius,  was  thinking 
of  Lipsius,  and  meant  that  the  history  of  the  world  on  an 
oecumenical  scale  was  a  nobler  study  than  that  of  a  court, 
which  exhibited  only  the  triumph  of  vice  and  personal 
despotism.  So  that  the  coincidence  was  more  seeming 
than  real. 

The  king  was  now  bent  upon  retaining  Casaubon 
permanently  in  England.  He  had  come  over  professedly 
on  a  short  visit.  But  it  had  been  understood  at  the 
english  embassy  that  Casaubon  was  gone  prospecting.  In 
October  the  ambassador  had  reported  to  Winwood^: 
'M.  Casaubon  is  gone  into  England,  in  the  company  of 
the  lord  Wotton,  to  make  a  tryall,  whether  the  condition 
that  is  offered  him  for  the  settling  him  there  shall  be  to 
his  liking.'  An  official  application  was  now  made  to  the 
french  government,  and  an  indefinite  permission  of 
absence  was  accorded.  That  it  was  a  leave  of  absence 
and  not  a  dismissal,  and  that  his  french  pension  was  to 
run  on,  were  favours  secured  for  him  by  personal  friends 
— de  Thou  or  Villeroy.     De  Thou's  prudence  desired  to 

1  Causeries  du  lundi,  14.  403.  '  Winwood's  Mem.  3.  226. 

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382  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

keep  open  for  him  a  retreat  into  France,  which  circum- 
stances might  any  day  render  expedient.  Casaubon,  on 
his  part,  in  consenting  to  remain  for  a  time,  reserved  his 
duty  to  his  own  sovereign.  '  I  consider  myself,'  he  writes 
to  Fronto  le  Due  ^,  '  now  and  always,  as  long  as  breath  is 
in  my  body,  the  queen's  servant.'  He  had  in  fact  been  ad- 
mitted, before  quitting  Paris,  to  an  interview  with  Marie 
de  Medicis,  who  had  strictly  charged  him  to  return  soon. 
He  had  pledged  himself  to  do  so,  whenever  summoned. 
Stepmother  as  Paris  had  been  to  him,  it  cost  him  a  pang  ^ 
'  to  bid  a  long  farewell  to  my  country  and  friends.'  And 
he  tells  de  Thou  ^  '  that  he  cannot  shake  off  the  painful 
sense  of  being  an  exile  ;  though  it  is  true  that  the  singular 
kindness  with  which  he  is  treated  by  the  king  softens  to 
him  not  a  little  the  want  of  home.' 

The  king  gave  the  best  proof  of  the  interest  he  took  in 
his  new  acquisition  by  providing  for  him,  at  once,  himself. 
Bancroft's  plan  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  bishops 
should  subscribe  the  difference  between  the  income  of  the 
Canterbury  prebend,  and  the  stipend  of  the  royal  librarian. 
The  king  came  forward  at  once  with  a  pension  of  ;^300  a 
year  from  his  own  purse,  in  addition  to  the  prebend  of 
Canterbury,  and  a  promise  of  something  more  on  the 
church  establishment  hereafter.  A  stall  at  Westminster 
was  named  *.  This  promise  was  not  fulfilled  ;  why  I  can- 
not explain,  as  on  Saravia's  death,  in  January  1613,  the 
opportunity  was  afforded. 

The  patent  conferring  the  pension  runs  thus  * :  James, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  etc.,  to  all  men  to  whom  these 
presents  shall  come,  greeting. 

'As  our  progenitors  have  heretofore  beene  careful!  to 
call  into  their  realme  persons  of  eminent  learning,  agreeing 
in  profession  of  religion  with  the  church  of  England,  and 

'  Ep.  725.  "  Ephem.  796 :  '  Durum  est  et  asperum.' 

Ep.  702.  *  See  note  A  in  Appendix. 

*  Rymer,  Feed.  16.  710,  reprinted  in  Russell,  Ephera.  p.  1122. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  383 

here  to  make  use  of  them  for  the  furtherance  of  learning 
and  religion  among  their  people ;  as  namelie  of  ^  Paulus 
Fagius,  Martin  Bucer,  Peter  Martyr,  and  others ;  soe  have 
wee,  in  regard  of  the  singular  learning  of  Isaac  Casaubon, 
and  of  his  concurrancye  with  us  and  the  church  of 
England  in  profession  of  religion,  invited  him  out  of 
Fraunce  into  this  our  realme,  here  to  make  his  aboad ; 
and  to  be  used  by  us  as  we  shall  see  cause  for  the  service 
of  the  church ;  and  for  his  better  support  and  maynten- 
ance,  during  the  time  of  his  aboade  here ;  we  are  pleased 
to  give  unto  him,  and  of  our  especiall  grace  certayn  know- 
ledge and  meer  motion  have  given  and  graunted  and  by 
theis  presents,  for  us  our  heires  and  successors,  doe  give 
and  graunt  unto  the  saide  Isaac  Casaubon  a  certayn 
annuitye  or  pension  of  three  hundred  poundes  of  good 

and  lawfull  money  of  England  by  the  yeare 

.  .  .  .  Witness  our  self  at  Westminster  the  nynteenth 
daye  of  Januarie  1611.' 

In  1610,  James  had  already  begun  to  feel  the  pressure 
of  poverty.  Even  Cecil  could  not  make  the  income  of  the 
crown  cover  the  expenditure.  In  1612  the  annual  deficit 
had  reached  ;£'i6o,ooo,  with  a  debt  of  ^^500,000.  The  king 
was  unable  to  pay  even  his  brewer's  bill.  If  in  this  situ- 
ation of  the  exchequer  we  are  disposed  to  look  at 
Casaubon's  pension  with  the  eyes  of  the  lord  treasurer, 
we  may  observe  how  trifling  is  its  amount,  in  comparison 
of  the  sums  which  the  king  habitually  lavished  on  the 
favourites,  who  brought  him  nothing  but  pubHc  hatred 
and  disgrace.  James  was  facile  in  giving  away,  rather  than 
liberal.     From  weakness  of  character,  he  yielded  to  the 

1  Paulus  Fagius  (Buchlein)  and  Martin  Bucer  (Putzer)  came  to  England 
together,  on  the  invitation  of  AbP.  Cranmer,  in  1549.  Zurich  Letters,  3.  535. 
They  were  entertained  at  Lambeth  before  they  were  removed  to  Cambridge. 
Peter  Mart3T  (Vermigli)  had  preceded  them.  He  came  to  England  in  1547,  in 
company  with  Bernardino  Ochino.  A  bill  of  the  expenses  of  their  journey 
from  Basel,  amounting  to  ;^I26  7s.  6rf.,  as  sent  in  to  the  privy  council,  is  printed 
in  the  Archseologia,  21.  471. 

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384  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

importunity  of  the  hungry  suitors,  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded. In  Casaubon's  case,  what  was  given  was 
unsolicited,  and  had  at  least  the  colourable  appearance  of 
being  patronage  of  learning.  James  was  purchasing  some 
credit  at  a  very  cheap  rate.  The  £2,00  a  year  spent  on 
Casaubon  is  some  set  off  against  the  thousands  afterwards 
squandered  on  unworthy  favourites — on  Carr,  or  Villiers. 

Casaubon  proceeded  to  take  out  letters  of  naturalisation, 
and  to  look  forward  to  a  permanent  settlement  in  this 
country.  But  if,  in  coming  over,  he  had  indulged  any 
hope  of  being  master  of  his  own  time,  of  acquiring  at  last 
that  '  otium '  for  which  he  had  been  all  his  life  sighing — 
the  leisure,  that  is,  to  toil  from  early  dawn  till  deep  into 
the  night  in  the  execution  of  some  cherished  literary 
scheme — he  was  soon  undeceived. 

The  first  and  great  claimant  of  his  time  was  the  king. 
Instead  of  tiring  of  him  as  the  novelty  wore  off,  the 
demand  for  him  became  more  frequent.  It  grew  to  be  an 
established  custom  that  he  was  to  present  himself  every 
Sunday  ^  As  James  was  little  in  London,  but  always  on 
the  move  from  one  hunting  seat  to  another,  Casaubon  was 
dragged  out  to  Theobald's,  Royston,  Greenwich,  Hampton 
Court,  Holdenby,  Newmarket,  wherever  the  court  might 
be  ^.  Sometimes,  not  always,  he  had  the  convenience  of  a 
court  carriage.  When  the  distance  obliged  him  to  spend 
the  night,  he  had  to  provide  his  own  lodging,  as  the 
accommodation  at  these  royal  residences  was  but  scanty  ^. 
In  writing  to  James  from  Paris,  in  April,  Casaubon  had 
naively  proposed,  as  the  one  object  of  his  visit  to  England, 
that  he  ' might  have  a  good  talk  with  your  majesty*.'     He 

'  Ephem.  p.  964 :  '  Ad  regem  prout  soleo  KaB'  kKaarrjv  Kvpian^r. 

'  Ep.  794  :  '  Ilia  ipsa  die  juberet  me  rex  se  Londino  proficiscentem  sequi.' 

'  Voltaire  says  of  the  court  of  France  in  1562,  Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  3.  233 : 
'  On  couchait  trois  ou  quatre  dans  le  meme  lit,  et  on  alloit  k  la  cour  habiter  une 
chambre  oil  il  n'y  avait  que  des  coffres  pour  meubles.' 

*  Ep.  664  :  '  Majestatis  tuae  sensus  omnes  propius  cognoscere,  et  qui  mihi  in 
mentem  veniebant  posse  eidem  comraunicare.' 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  285 

was  now  taken  at  his  word;  and  before  the  end  of  the 
year  he  had  had  enough  of  it.  Not  that  he  grew  tired  of 
the  king.  He  tells  de  Thou  ^'that  he  found  him  greater 
than  report,  and  thought  him  more  so  every  time  he  saw 
him.'  In  February  1613,  he  writes  ^  'I  enjoy  the  favour  of 
this  excellent  monarch,  who  is  really  more  instructed  than 
most  people  give  him  credit  for.  He  is  a  lover  of  learning 
to  a  degree  beyond  belief;  his  judgment  of  books,  old  and 
new,  is  such  as  would  become  a  professed  scholar,  rather 
than  a  mighty  prince.'  But  it  was  the  ruin  of  his  leisure. 
Casaubon  was  flattered  by  the  attention,  while  he  chafed 
under  the  outlay  of  time  it  occasioned.  Time  spent  in 
conversation,  however  agreeable,  was  to  him  time  lost. 
He  begs  Montague^,  Lake,  the  king  himself,  to  permit 
him  to  bury  himself  in  his  study,  and  to  present  any 
observations  he  may  have  to  make  by  their  mediation. 
'  It  is  not  fitting  for  one  so  lowly  as  I  am  to  approach  so 
great  a  monarch,  save  through  a  third  person  *.' 

One  consequence  to  Casaubon  of  this  establishment  in 
the  circle  that  stood  round  the  royal  chair  was,  that  his 
thoughts  were  more  and  more  turned  from  their  own 
direction.  Learning  ceased  to  occupy  his  mind,  and  he 
was  now  engrossed  by  the  ecclesiastical  topic,  which  was 
the  paramount  object  of  interest  in  this  society.  He 
occasionally  thinks,  with  a  sigh  of  regret,  of  his  unfinished 
Polybius.  But  he  never  touches  it.  The  king,  who  had 
started  on  his  career  with  the  axiom  imbibed  from  Buch- 


'  Ep.  693:  'Majorem  fama  sua  inveni,  et  quotidie  magis  magisque  invenio.' 
^  Ep.  864.  Casaubon's  language  about  James  to  others  is  honourable  to  the 
king,  and,  I  think,  with  some  exceptions  (see  Epp.  ep.  249),  not  overcharged. 
His  language  to  James  himself  is  adulatory.  But  it  was  the  style  of  the  court, 
and  meant  nothing,  or  meant  only  '  wonderful  for  a  king.'  Bacon,  nay  Selden, 
was  equally  lavish  of  the  dialect  of  flattery,  the  latter  to  an  extent  which  raised 
in  Dr.  Aikin,  Lives  of  Selden,  etc.  p.  37,  '  a  painful  sense  of  the  degradation 
incurred  by  literature  when  brought  in  collision  with  power,  unless  supported 
by  a  proper  sense  of  its  own  dignity.'  The  words  of  Selden  to  which  Dr.  Aikin 
refers  are  in  Selden,  Op.  3.  1400.  See  note  B  in  Appendix. 
'  Ep.  696.  *  See  note  B  in  Appendix. 


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2,86  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

anan,  '  that  a  king  ought  to  be  the  most  learned  clerk  in 
his  dominion,'  now  never  read  anything  but  controversial 
divinity,  and  chiefly  the  pamphlets  of  the  day.  '  Nothing 
escapes  him,'  Casaubon  writes  to  Fronto  ^.  To  cardinal 
Du  Perron  he  writes  ^,  '  Neither  his  private  affairs  nor 
public  business  interest  his  majesty  so  deeply  as  do  affairs 
of  religion,  and  his  desire  of  bringing  about  concord 
among  the  divided  members  of  the  church.'  This  temper 
of  the  english  court  was  well  understood  on  the  continent. 
Fra  Paolo  regrets  ^  '  that  the  king  of  England  was  become 
a  doctor  of  divinity.'  '  I  come  from  England,'  Grotius 
writes  in  1613  *,  '  where  there  is  little  commerce  of  letters ; 
theologians  are  there  the  reigning  authorities.  Casaubon 
is  the  only  exception ;  and  he  could  have  found  no  place 
in  England  as  a  man  of  learning;  he  was  compelled  to 
assume  the  theologian.'  Heinsius  sent  Casaubon  a  copy 
of  his  edition  of  the  '  Poetics.'  Casaubon  took  the  book 
with  him  to  court  to  read  himself^,  but  he  does  not  speak 
of  it  to  the  king,  and  only  tells  him  that  Heinsius  has 
sided  against  the  arminians. 

Casaubon  at  first  lamented  this  growing  ecclesiastical 
passion,  which  was  swamping  better  tastes  both  in  court 
and  church.  In  November,  1611,  he  writes^  to  Charles 
Labbe :  '  If  you  wish  to  know  what  I  am  doing  here,  I 
can  only  report  that  all  my  old  studies  have  entirely 
ceased.  The  king,  great  and  learned  as  he  is,  is  now  so 
entirely  taken  up  with  one  sort  of  book,  that  he  keeps  his 
own  mind  and  the  minds  of  all  about  him  occupied  exclus- 
ively on  the  one  topic.  Hardly  a  day  passes  on  which  some 
new  pamphlet    is   not  brought  him,   mostly  written   by 

'  Cas.  ep.  ad  Front,  p.  37 ;  '  Nihil  ilium  fugit  eorum  quae  a  vestris  hominibus 
scriptitantur.' 

*  Cas.  resp,  ad  card.  Perr.  p.  4. 
'  Paolo  Sarpi,  Lettere,  88. 

*  Grotii  Epp,  p.  751 :  '  Ne  huic  quidem  locus  fuisset  in  Anglia  ut  literatori, 
theologum  induere  debuerit.' 

'-  Ep.  754-  "  Ep.  753. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  287 

Jesuits,  on  the  martyrdom  of  Saint  Garnett,  the  sufferings 
of  the  english  catholics,  or  matters  of  that  description.  All 
these  things  I  have  to  read  and  give  my  opinion  upon.' 
In  March,  1613,  things  had  not  altered.  He  writes  to  a 
friend  ^ :  '  As  long  as  I  shall  stay  in  England,  I  see  that  I 
must  make  up  my  mind  to  forego  classical  letters.  Our 
excellent  and  most  religious  king  is  so  fond  of  theology, 
that  he  cares  very  little  to  attend  to  any  literary  subject.' 
Grotius  recollected  in  1628  '^,  that  Casaubon  had  told  him 
'  that  he  had  now  laid  aside  all  his  interest  in  the  military 
affairs  of  ancient  Rome.  Henri  iv,  greatest  of  monarchs 
and  of  captains,  had  put  him  upon  them.  But,  after  his 
removal  to  Britain,  he  had  transferred  his  studies  and  his 
interests  to  other  matters,  viz.  religion  and  religious  con- 
cord, for  which  alone  the  king  of  England  cared.' 

The  call  of  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  age  to  England, 
and  his  endowment  out  of  the  revenue  of  the  english 
church,  was  a  creditable  act  of  government  in  a  country 
and  a  church  whose  history  is  not  illumined  by  any  public 
spirited  patronage  of  science  or  learning.  The  incident 
figures  in  the  histories  of  the  church  in  this  capacity.  It 
is  disappointing,  when  we  come  to  look  narrowly  into  the 
transaction,  to  find  that  this  solitary  instance  of  disinter- 
ested patronage  of  learning  is  no  instance  at  all.  Then, 
greek  scholarship,  however  eminent,  was  not  a  commodity 
for  which  king,  bishops,  or  parliament  of  England  would 
have  paid  £300.  The  king  was  delighted  to  find  in  Casau- 
bon a  new  gossip,  deferential,  without  being  obsequious, 
whose  memory  was  an  inexhaustible  store  of  book  learn- 
ing. The  high  church  bishops  sought  for  their  party  the 
credit  of  a  distinguished  convert  from  puritanism,  and  they 
intended    to  employ  his  pen  in  behalf  of  their  cause, 


1  Ep.  872. 

'  Grotii  Epp.  ep.  184.  app. :  '  .  .  .  translatum  in  Britanniam  studio  quoque 
se  eo  transtulisse,  quo  vergeret  animus  regis,  cui  non  tam  arma  quam  pax  et 
religio  cordi.' 


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288  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Struggling  in  1610  against  unpopularity.  The  reading 
public  saw  in  Casaubon  the  vindicator  of  the  civil  power 
against  the  spiritual  tyranny  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  of  the 
protestant  faith  against  popery.  All  these  parts  Casaubon 
had  to  submit  to  act  with  as  good  a  grace  as  might  be. 

When  historians  credit  James  with  surrounding  himself 
with  learned  men,  it  should  be  added  that  it  was  with 
learned  divines  only.  There  did  not  exist  in  this  country 
any  distinct  class  of  scholars,  or  guild  of  learning,  such  as 
had  been  found  in  Italy  in  the  15th  century,  or  as  is  formed 
by  the  german  professoriate  of  our  day.  When  Rittershu- 
sius  wanted  to  secure  a  copyright  in  England  for  an  edition 
of  the  '  Novellae '  he  was  printing  at  Altorf,  Casaubon 
assured  him  that  ^ '  the  precaution  was  unnecessary ;  the 
Enghsh  printers  care  nothing  for  that  sort  of  book.  The 
only  reading  which  flourishes  here  is  theology ;  no  books 
but  theological  books,  and  those  of  english  authors,  are 
published  here.  The  educated  men  in  this  part  of  the 
world  contemn  everything  which  does  not  bear  upon 
theology.' 

There  was,  indeed,  a  set  of  men  in  England  to  whom 
the  title  of  learned  is  eminently  due,  though  their  reading 
was  directed,  not  to  the  classics,  but  mainly  to  the  anti- 
quities of  their  own  country.  Camden,  Cotton,  Spelman, 
above  all,  Selden,  and  those  who  formed  the  society  of 
antiquaries,  were  not  only  the  best  set  of  their  time,  but 
one  which  we  shall  hardly  match  in  our  later  history. 
Bacon  had  been  among  them  before  he  sold  himself  for 
official  advancement,  and  Andrewes  had  imbibed  something 
of  their  spirit.  But  this  set  of  men  was  neglected,  or 
frowned  upon,  by  the  court.  If  James  showed  in  1610 
some  interest  in  Camden's  '  Annals,'  it  was  only  in  respect 
of  the  political  capital  he  reckoned  to  make  out  of  it,  or 

'  Ep.  766:  '  .  .  .  typographi  Angli  ejusmodi  libros  non  curant.  sola  est, 
qu«  hie  floreat,  sacra  Theologia ;  soli  fere  libri  theologici,  et  fere  Anglorum, 
qui  hie  eduntur.' 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  289 

with  a  view  to  the  vindication  of  his  mother's  character. 
Bacon  had  appealed  to  the  king  in  the  'Advancement 
of  Learning,'  and  had  satisfied  himself  that  there  was 
no  hope  from  that  quarter,  for  help  for  the  '  Instauratio 
Magna  ^'  In  1609,  Bacon  doubts  if  he  can  still  interest 
Andrewes  in  his  speculations,  as  he  intimates  in  sending 
to  the  bishop  his  'Cogitata  et  Visa^.'  Instead  of  en- 
couraging Bacon,  the  bishops  were  scheming  a  college  at 
Chelsea  for  the  production  of  more  controversial  divinit3^ 
The  king  gave  a  patent,  and  licence  of  mortmain,  and 
actually  nominated  seventeen  fellows  and  a  provost^-  A 
Jesuit  pamphleteer  had  taunted  Andrewes  with  having  got 
a  bishopric  by  reading  Terence  and  Plautus.  This  is  an 
imputation  on  his  character  from  which  Casaubon  must 
defend  him  * ;  'In  the  last  thirty  years  he  has  rarely 
had  Plautus  in  his  hands ;  Terence  never  once.  If  in  his 
writing  any  traces  of  his  classical  reading  are  to  be  found, 
let  the  blame  rest  on  his  retentive  memory,  and  on  the 
giver  of  that  mental  endowment.'  Aptly  enough,  though 
in  jest,  the  earl  of  Suffolk  advises  sir  John  Harington  ^, 
'  You  are  not  young,  you  are  not  handsome,  you  are  not 
finely ;  and  yet  will  you  come  to  courte,  and  thinke  to  be 
well-favoured  ?  why  I  say  again  "  good  knight,"  that  your 
learning  may  somewhat  prove  worthy  hereunto ;  your 
latin  and  your  greek,  your  Italian,  your  Spanish  tongues, 
your  wit  and  discretion,  may  be  well  looked  unto  for  a 
while  as  strangers  at  such  a  place,  but  these  are  not 
the  thinges  men  live  by  now  a  days.' 

How  entirely  the  soul  of  true  learning,  viz.  the  spirit 


'  Spedding,  Life  of  Bacon,  4.  23.  "  Ibid.  p.  141. 

3  Fuller,  Ch.  Hist.  10.  3,  19. 

'  Cas.  ep.  ad  Front,  p.  159:  'Accusat  praesulem  quod  Terentium  et  Plautum 
legerit  juvenis  in  academiis  ;  nam  ex  eo  tempore,  h.  e.  ab  annis  30,  Plautum  vix 
in  manus  aliquando  meminit  sumsisse ;  Terentium  ne  semel  quidem  attigit. 
Siqua  igitur  veteris  lectionis  vestigia  in  scriptis  senis  venerandi  apparent,  accuset 
felicem  illius  meraoriam.' 

=  Nichols'  Progr.  2.  414. 

U 

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290  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

of  investigation,  was  wanting  in  the  circle  which  sur- 
rounded James,  and  into  which  Casaubon  was  now  ma- 
triculated, is  evinced  by  what  happened  to  Selden  in 
1618.  He  published  in  that  year  his  '  History  of  Tythes.' 
It  is  the  work  of  a  legal  antiquary,  and  if  not  in  point 
of  arrangement  a  model  of  historical  criticism,  it  follows 
the  true  path  of  critical  inquiry.  Selden,  with  Scaliger's 
example  before  him,  had  raised  himself  to  the  idea  of  an 
historical  investigator;  inquiring  into  facts,  not  drawing 
up  a  case.  The  '  History  of  Tythes,'  written  in  this  spirit, 
was  received  with  a  howl  of  rage  by  the  learned  divines 
of  the  court  circle.  They  could  not  conceive  that  a  book 
could  be  written  on  tithes,  which  was  neither  for,  nor 
against,  the  church.  The  high  commission  court  was 
brought  down  on  the  unfortunate  author,  who  had  com- 
mitted the  crime  of  carrying  historical  criticism  into  the 
region  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity.  This  error  Selden  was 
compelled  to  apologise  for,  and  to  retract  by  a  court  of 
which  Abbot,  King,  Buckeridge,  and  Andrewes,  were 
members. 

But  though  the  Jacobean  divines  do  not  constitute  an 
epoch  of  learning,  they  represent  a  stage  on  the  road  to- 
wards it.  Critical  inquiry  was  not  only  unknown,  but  was 
proscribed.  Yet  a  zeal  for  reading  and  patristic  research 
characterised  them,  which  abated  the  raw  ignorance  of  the 
preceding  century.  They  were  led  into  the  region  of 
learning.  Barren  as  their  controversial  pamphlets  are, 
yet  theology  approached  the  ground  of  scientific  criticism 
more  nearly  than  amid  the  bandying  of  scriptural  texts, 
which  had  been  the  controversial  form  of  the  century  of 
the  reformation.  Anglicanism  was  purging  itself  of  its 
fanaticism,  and  leaving  that  element  to  the  puritans.  It  is 
true  that  all  study  was  theological,  and  that  the  theology 
was  contentious,  not  scientific.  But  at  any  rate  there  was 
study.    A  german  visitor,  young   Calixtus,  always   said^ 

'  Henke,  Calixtus  Leben,  i.  149. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  391 

that  'his  tutors  in  Germany  had  not  done  as  much  in 
spurring  him  on  to  the  study  of  ecclesiastical  history  as 
had  the  english  bishops,  and  the  well  stored  libraries  he 
had  seen  among  them,'  during  his  visit  in  1612.  The 
influence  of  Andrewes  on  Cambridge  could  not  but  be 
beneficial.  We  find  him  ^  '  making  continual  search  and 
inquiry  to  know  what  hopeful  young  men  were  in  the  uni- 
versity ;  his  chaplain  and  friends  receiving  a  charge  from 
him  to  certify  what  hopeful  and  towardly  young  wits  they 
met  with  from  time  to  time.'  The  instructions  issued  by 
the  crown  to  the  vice-chancellor  of  Oxford  ^,  '  according 
to  which  young  students  were  to  be  incited  to  bestow 
their  time  in  the  fathers  and  councils,  schoolmen,  histories 
and  controversies,  and  not  to  insist  too  long  in  compen- 
diums  and  abbreviations,'  are  in  the  same  direction.  '  You 
must  not  suppose,'  Casaubon  writes  to  Saumaise^,  'that 
this  people  is  a  barbarous  people  ;  nothing  of  the  sort ;  it 
loves  letters  and  cultivates  them,  sacred  learning  especially. 
Indeed,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  soundest  part  of  the 
whole  reformation  is  to  be  found  here  in  England,  where 
the  study  of  antiquity  flourishes  together  with  zeal  for  the 
truth.' 

At  fifty-one  friends  are  but  slowly  made.  Yet  men  who 
have  long  been  before  the  world  in  their  books,  do  not 
approach  each  other  for  the  first  time  as  strangers.  In 
this  circle  of  divines  Isaac  Casaubon  was  soon  at  home, 
but  there  were  two  with  whom  he  became  specially 
intimate ;  '  the  only  two  native  Englishmen,'  he  says  *, 
'with  whom  he  lived  on  intimate  terms  in  London.' 
These  were  the  bishop  of  Ely  and  the  dean  of  S. 
Paul's. 

'  Isaacson,  Life  and  Death  of  Andrewes,  p.  xvii. 

"  Heylin,  Life  of  Laud,  p.  71. 

'  Ep.  837 :  '  Haec  gens  nihil  minus  est  quam  barbara,  amat  et  edit  literas, 
prsesertim  autem  sacras,  quod  si  me  conjectura  non  fallit,  totius  reformationis 
pars  integerrima  est  in  Anglia.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  916 ;  '  Quos  solos  Anglorum  familiares  habeo.' 

U   2 

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aga  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Lancelot  Andrewes,  just  (September  1609)  translated 
to  Ely,  was  a  prelate  who  united  a  sincere  piety  with 
a  genial  wit,  and  who,  if  he  had  not  been  a  bishop,  might 
have  left  an  eminent  name  in  english  literature.  For  a  man 
who  had  been  long  about  court,  who  had  the  preaching 
gift,  and  was  in  the  way  of  preferment,  his  reading  was 
considerable,  though  it  has  been  much  overrated.  He  had, 
in  common  with  many  english  divines  his  contemporaries, 
an  extensive  acquaintance  with  what  may  be  called  the 
'apparatus  theologicus.'  He  knew  enough  of  the  latin 
and  greek  ecclesiastical  writers  to  find  out  whether  another 
man  knew  them.  He  knew  enough  to  appreciate  Cas- 
aubon's  knowledge  of  them.  He  had  been  a  prime  mover 
in  bringing  Casaubon  to  England.  He  had  thus  taken  on 
himself  the  obligation  to  befriend  him.  But  when  he  came 
to  make  Casaubon's  acquaintance,  the  character  of  the 
man  suited  and  attracted  the  bishop.  Profound  piety  and 
great  reading,  common  to  both,  placed  them  at  first  in 
sympathy.  Of  bishop  Andrewes,  it  is  affirmed  ^  that  '  he 
daily  spent  many  hours  in  holy  prayers  and  abundant 
tears.'  Casaubon's  diary  is  one  prolonged  litany. 
Andrewes  was  ^  indefatigable  in  study  from  childhood  to 
age.  From  the '  hour  he  rose,  his  private  devotions 
finished,  to  the  time  he  was  called  to  dinner,  which  was 
not  till  twelve  at  noon  at  soonest,  he  kept  close  to  his  book, 
and  would  not  be  interrupted  by  any  that  came  to  speak 
with  him.  He  would  be  so  displeased  with  scholars  that 
attempted  to  speak  with  him  in  a  morning,  that  he  would 
say,  '  he  doubted  they  were  no  true  scholars  that  came  to 
speak  with  him  before  noon.'  When,  after  his  promotion 
to  a  bishopric,  his  own  studies  were  cut  short,  he  was 
ready  to  encourage  those  of  others  ^-    He  sent  Bedwell  to 


'  Isaacson,  Life  and  Death,  etc  ,  p.  xiii.  ^  Ibid.  p.  xxv. 

■■  Cas.  epp.  831  :  '  Hie  dignissimus  pr^sul  non  solum  est  doctissimus,  sed 
etiam  egregie  favet  literis ;  itaque  Bedwello  pecuniam  pollicitus  est  necessariam 
ad  Thesauri  Arabici  editionem.' 


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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  293 

Leyden  to  study  arable,  and  promised  to  bear  the  charges 
of  printing  his  '  Thesaurus  Arabicus.'  In  tastes  thus  ahke, 
Andrewes  and  Casaubon  had  the  further  bond  of  com- 
munity of  theological  opinions.  And  the  coincidence  of 
opinion  had  the  charm  of  rencontre.  Their  opinions  had 
been  arrived  at  by  each  independently.  The  two  had  not 
been  formed  in  one  school,  but  had  found  out  primitive 
antiquity,  each  for  himself  in  a  different  country,  and 
without  communication.  It  was  a  source  of  ever  fresh 
delight  and  surprise  to  them  to  find  how  independent 
reading  had  conducted  them  to  identical  results. 

With  these  conformities  of  character  and  opinion,  there 
was  sufficient  intellectual  difference  to  lend  the  interest  of 
contrast   to    their   intercourse.     As    when    Ben    Jonson 
encountered  Shakespeare,  it  is  the  coUision  of  learning 
with  wit.     Casaubon  might  admire  the  nimble  suggestion, 
the  ready  memory,  the  prompt  repartee  of  his  new  friend. 
Andrewes  must  have  felt  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of 
one  who  knew  more  than  himself,  of  the  things  of  which 
he  knew  most ;  one,  the  relation  of  whose  knowledge  to 
his  own  was  that  of  the  whole  to  the  part.     They  soon 
mutually   delighted   in   each   other's    society.    Andrewes 
carried  Casaubon  to  Ely  with  him,  kept  him  there  as  long 
as  he  could  make  him  stay,  and  pressed  him  to  go  down 
again  in  the  following  summer.     Casaubon  writes  of  him 
to  all  his  friends ;  to  de  Thou  that  ^  '  he  is  a  man  whom  if 
you  knew  you  would   take   to  exceedingly.     We   spend 
whole  days  in  talk   of  letters,  sacred  especially,  and  no 
words  can  express  what  true  piety,  what  uprightness  of 
judgement,  I  find  in  him.'    To  Heinsius  he  says^,  'I  am 
by  way  of  seeing  the  bishop  daily.     He  is  one  of  a  few 
whose  society  enables  me  to  support  being  separated  from 
de  Thou.     I  am  attracted  to  the  man  by  his  profound 
learning,  and  charmed  by  a  graciousness  of  manner  not 
common  in  one  so  highly  placed.'    Again,  in  1613,  he  tells 

'  Ep.  741.  '  Ep.  754. 

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^94  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Heinsius  \  '  If  you  come  over  here  you  will  receive  the 
warmest  welcome  from  the  bishop  of  Ely ;  he  longs  to  see 
you  at  Ely  House.' 

With  all  these  endowments  of  nature  and  education, 
Andrewes  had  not  risen  above  his  surroundings.  His 
piety  had  not  softened  his  heart,  his  reading  had  not  en- 
larged his  intellect.  Nothing  in  his  writings  rises  above 
the  level  of  theological  polemic,  or  witty  conundrum 
making.  He  warns  Bellarmine  what  he  may  expect  if  he 
should  be  caught  in  England  ^.  He  was  one  of  the  knot 
of  bishops  who  planned,  and  deliberately  carried  through, 
the  wanton  execution  of  Legatt.  He  sat  on  the  com- 
mission in  the  Essex  case  and — there  is  a  lower  depth  of 
infamy — gave  his  voice  for  the  divorce. 

The  dean  of  S.  Paul's  had  taken  in  Casaubon,  and 
entertained  him  as  his  guest  for  nearly  twelve  months. 
Yet  so  much  in  his  company,  there  is  little  reference 
to  him  in  Casaubon's  remains.  The  kind  attentions  and 
hospitality,  both  of  the  dean  and  of  Mrs.  Overall,  are 
warmly  acknowledged  in  a  letter  ^  which  is  a  record  of 
Casaubon's  gratitude.  A  short  note  from  the  dean  to  Cas- 
aubon *  contains  an  invitation  to  him  to  go  out  of  town 
to  visit  him,  in  his  country  house  at  Islington.  Among  the 
Adversaria  of  1610  is  a  memorandum,  that  the  dean  had 
suggested  on  Hebr.  10.  5,  that  ar&ij,a  is  a  corruption  of  otrla 
with  reduplication  of  the  final  s  of  the  preceding  word ; 
and  that  he  proposed  to  read  i  Cor.  6.  4  interrogatively. 
It  may  be  noticed  that  even  in  this  rough  note,  for  his  own 
eye  only  intended,  Casaubon  cannot  name  Overall  without 
adding  'vir  longe  doctissimus,'  a  testimonial  which  is  of 
vastly  more  weight  than  A.  Wood's  ^,  '  one  of  the  pro- 
foundest  school  divines  of  our  nation,'  or  than  Camden's ", 
'  a  man  learned  all  round.' 

1  Ep.  881.  '  Tortura  Torti,  p.  47. 

'  Ep.  739.  *  Burney  Mss.  364.  p.  337. 

°  Athen.  2.  812.  '  Camden,  Annales,  p.  849. 

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v.]  LONDON,     1610-1614.  295 

Casaubon  writes  to  Heinsius  ^  that  among  the  men 
in  England  who  deserved  the  name  of  theologian  were 
the  bishop  of  Ely,  the  bishop  of  Winchester,  and  the  dean 
of  S.  Paul's.  But  at  this  date  his  acquaintance  with  enghsh 
churchmen  was  limited.  When  he  visited  Oxford  he  be- 
came acquainted  with  several,  of  whom  two  at  least,  Abbot 
(Robert)  and  Prideaux  (John)  deserved  the  compliment 
equally  with  the  three  he  names.  Prideaux  was  rising 
into  distinction  as  tutor,  and  1612,  rector,  of  Exeter.  He 
particularly  affected  foreigners.  In  his  time,  and  by  his 
means,  the  resort  of  foreigners  to  Oxford,  which  the  re- 
formation had  broken  off,  seemed  to  be  revived  for  a  short 
time,  and  on  a  small  scale  ^.  Some  of  these  were  young 
matriculated  students ;  others,  older  men,  who  only  rented 
chambers  in  the  house,  'to  improve  themselves  by  his 
company,  his  instruction,  his  direction.'  His  manners 
were  more  polished  than  those  of  the  average  academic, 
and  Casaubon  was  attracted*  to  him  at  once.  As 
Prideaux  was  selected  by  the  archbishop  to  reply  for 
Casaubon  to  Eudaemon- Joannes,  the  preparation  of  the 
pamphlet  led  to  much  correspondence  between  the  two. 
Prideaux,  who  was  a  young  and  rising  man,  was  very 
anxious  to  be  received  into  the  favoured  circle  of  court 
divines,  and  saw  his  way  to  this  by  the  medium  of  the 
pamphlet.  He  was  nervously  desirous  that  what  he  wrote 
should  be  satisfactory  to  the  king,  and  that  it  should  have 
Casaubon's  recommendation  in  that  quarter*.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  pleasing  the  king  and  the  archbishop  by  his 
pamphlet,  and  was  rewarded  for  it  by  the  Regius 
professorship  of  divinity.  But  this  was  after  Casaubon's 
death. 

Of  his  principal  Cambridge  friend,  Richard  Thomson, 

'  Ep.  744.  '^  A.  Wood,  Athenae,  3.  269. 

'  Ep.  903  :   '  Ita  me  nuper  cepisti,  cum  isthic  te  primum  vidi ;  multo  magis 
quum  te  loquentem  audivi.' 

'  Ep  915  :  '  Non  dubito  quin  ea  res  optimi  regis  animum  tibi  sit  conciliatura.' 

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2,ge  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

something  has  been  said  before.  Thomson  was  among 
his  earliest  acquaintance.  TravelHng  to  Italy,  as  tutor  to 
some  nobleman,  Thomson  had  made  some  stay,  as  most 
Englishmen  did,  at  Geneva.  It  was  he  who  had  introduced 
Henry  Wotton  to  Casaubon,  and,  more  than  this,  who  first 
mentioned  Casaubon  to  Scaliger.  Thomson  may  thus  be 
said  to  have  been  the  discoverer  of  Casaubon,  as  it  was 
through  Scaliger  that  Casaubon  became  known  to  the 
Parisian  friends.  Thomson  was  a  book  and  manuscript 
hunter,  and  had  helped  Casaubon  to  some  things  of  this 
kind,  which  he  would  fain  have  had  regarded  as  presents, 
but  on  this  point  Casaubon  was  scrupulous.  Nor  was  it 
only  gratitude  which  bound  Casaubon  to  Thomson. 
Thomson's  amiable  qualities  attached  Casaubon ;  he  was 
a  favourite  with  Madame  Casaubon,  and  he  is  the  only 
correspondent  to  whom  the  children  send  their  remem- 
brances. In  his  university  (he  was  M.  a.  of  Clare)  he  was 
well  considered  as  a  scholar,  and  was  on  the  company 
of  translators  of  king  James'  bible,  for  Hebrew.  But  he 
had  also  coquetted  with  many  classics,  greek  and  latin, 
helping  any  of  his  friends  in  their  editions.  He  had  given 
suggestions  to  Casaubon  for  Suetonius,  for  Polybius,  for 
the  Augustan  historians,  and  to  Farnaby  for  Martial.  He 
had  talked  of  editing  himself  the  Epistles  to  Atticus, 
and  Zonaras'  Lexicon,  but  never  did  anything.  He  was 
drawn,  like  his  friend,  into  the  theological  vortex,  and  his 
literary  schemes  ended  in  a  polemical  tract. 

After  his  arrival  in  England,  Casaubon  occasionally  saw 
Thomson,  and  always  with  pleasure.  Richard  Thomson 
and  the  bishop  of  Ely  are  two  men  in  whose  society  time 
is  not  lost  1-  When  he  visited  Cambridge  it  is  Thomson 
to  whom  Casaubon  belongs,  who,  as  matter  of  right,  shows 
him  over  the  university.    And  when,  afterwards  in  1611, 

Ephem.  p.  876 ;  '  A  prandio  nihil  prorsus  ;  neque  tamen  poenitet,  nam  totum 
tempus  fui  cum  magno  praesule  D.  Episcopo  et  amicissimo  Tomsone.' 

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v.]  LONDON.     161C-1614.  297 

Thomson  got  into  trouble,  it  is  to  Casaubon  he  turns  to 
befriend  him  with  the  bishops  ^ 

Outside  the  circle  of  court  divines,  or  '  the  theologians,' 
Casaubon  formed  hardly  any  acquaintance  during  his 
engHsh  residence.  His  relations  with  the  '  antiquaries,'  as 
we  may  call  the  non-theological  men  of  letters,  were 
merely  distant. 

Bacon's  name  is  the  symbol  of  so  much,  that  we  may  be 
naturally  desirous  to  find  any  traces  of  his  intercourse  with 
Casaubon.  In  1609,  Casaubon  had  read  Bacon's  '  De 
Sapientia  Veterum,'  and,  struck  by  the  originaHty  of  the 
piece,  had  spoken  of  it  in  a  letter  to  Sir  George  Carew. 
Sir  George  had  told  Bacon  of  Casaubon's  good  opinion. 
Bacon,  who  was  at  that  time  desirous^  of  making  the 
acquaintance  of  '  learned  men  beyond  the  seas,'  wrote  the 
following  letter  to  Casaubon  : — 

'  Understanding  from  your  letter  to  the  lord  Carew  that 
you  approve  my  writings,  I  not  only  took  it  as  a  matter  for 
congratulation,  but  thought  I  would  write  to  tell  you  how 
much  pleasure  your  favourable  opinion  had  given  me.  My 
earnest  desire  is,  as  you  rightly  divine,  to  draw  the 
sciences  out  of  their  hiding-places  into  the  light.  To  write 
at  one's  ease  that  which  others  are  to  read  at  their  ease  is 
of  little  consequence ;  the  contemplations  I  have  in  view 
are  those  which  may  bring  about  the  better  ordering  of 
man's  life  and  business  with  all  its  turmoil.  How  great  an 
enterprise  this  is,  and  with  what  small  helps  I  have 
attempted  it,  you  will  perhaps  learn  hereafter.  Meanwhile 
you  would  do  me  in  return  a  very  great  pleasure  if  you 
would  communicate  to  me  your  own  plans  and  occupations. 

'  See  below,  pp.  350,  351. 

^  Spedding,  Life,  4.  146.  Birch  appears  to  me  to  have  rightly  fixed  the  date 
of  Casaubon's  letter  (to  which  Bacon  alludes)  to  somewhere  between  October 
1609,  and  March  1610.  In  Bacon's  Comm.  solutus,  Spedd.  4.  64,  is  a  paper 
headed  '  Q.  of  learned  men  beyond  the  seas  to  be  made,  and  hearkening  who 
they  be  that  may  be  so  inclined.'  Mr.  Spedding,  4.  145,  explains  '  made ' 
persuaded  to  take  an  interest  in  the  '  Great  instauration.'  It  appears  to  me 
that  '  made '  is  to  be  referred  to  Q.  =  '  enquiry  to  be  made.' 

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298  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

For  I  ever  think  that  this  intercommunion  of  pursuits 
conduces  more  to  friendship  than  poHtical  connections  or 
mutual  services.  I  think  no  man  could  ever  more  truly 
say  of  himself  than  I  can,  "  multum  incola  fuit  anima  mea." 
Indeed,  I  seem  to  have  my  conversation  among  the  ancients 

rather  than  among  these  with  whom  I  live If  in 

anything  my  friendship  can  be  of  use  or  grace  to  you  or 
your's,  assure  yourself  of  my  good  and  diligent  service ; 
and  so  biddeth  you  farewell,  Your  friend,  etc' 

This  letter  is  but  a  draft,  and  was  never  sent.  It  may  be 
conjectured  that  Casaubon's  coming  to  England  about  that 
time  removed  him  from  the  category  to  which  Bacon's 
memorandum  referred.  While  Bacon's  mind  was  occupied 
with  the  speculations  of  the  '  Sapientia  Veterum,'  he  might 
tell  Casaubon  that  '  I  seem  to  have  my  conversation  among 
the  ancients  rather  than  among  those  with  whom  I  live.' 
This  was  a  passing  phase.  If  he  inquired  about  Casaubon, 
Bacon  would  learn  that  he  was  too  much  engrossed  with 
the  episcopal  pamphlet  warfare  to  be  available  for  the 
purposes  of  the  ■  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum.'  We  know  ^ 
what  Bacon  thought  of  church  controversy.  Had  Bacon 
frequented  the  bishop  of  Ely,  he  might  then  have  chanced 
on  Casaubon.  But  we  learn  from  his  own  letter  ^  that  he 
now  saw  little  or  nothing  of  the  bishop,  and  that  from  this 
very  cause,  that  '  your  lordship  hath  been  so  busy  in  the 
church  and  the  i!)alace,  disputing  between  kings  and  popes ; ' 
a  sentence  which  hardly  disguises  Bacon's  contempt  for 
the  bishop's  occupation. 

With  William  Camden,  the  '  Pausanias  of  Britain,'  as 
A.  Wood  calls  him,  Casaubon  would  naturally  be  more  in 
sympathy.  In  the  early  Genevan  days,-  when  an  exile 
from  learned  societ}^,  Casaubon  had  ventured,  among  other 
feelers,  a  letter  to  Camden,  desiring  his  acquaintance  on 
the  ground  of  his  admiration  of  the  '  Britannia.'  In  his 
remote  corner,  difficult  as  books  were  to  get^  this  small 

'  Spedding,  Life,  4.  137.  ^  Spedding,  Life,  4.  141. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  399 

volume,  published  in  London,  and  relating  to  distant 
England,  had  not  escaped  Casaubon's  watchful  eye.  The 
same  letter  intimated  to  Camden  respectfully,  but  un- 
hesitatingly, that  the  word  '  Britain  '  was  not  derived  from 
'  Brith  and  ravia  ^.'  The  head  master  of  Westminster  was 
not  accustomed  to  have  his  greek  questioned.  He  did 
not  condescend  to  alter  his  derivation  in  the  edition  of 
1607,*  and  the  acquaintance  made  slow  progress.  But 
when  Casaubon  was  settled  in  Paris,  Camden,  now  become 
Clarencieux,  and  in  regular  correspondence  with  the 
British  embassy  and  with  de  Thou,  heard  much  of  Cas- 
aubon. The  books  Casaubon  was  known  to  be  writing, 
formed  part  of  the  public  news  with  which  William  Becher 
entertained  Camden.  And  so,  through  the  embassy, 
Camden  sent  Casaubon  a  copy  of  the  new  edition  of  his 
'  Britannia,'  1607.  Casaubon  returned  the  compliment  by 
sending  Camden  a  copy  of  his  '  Polybius ; '  though  he 
could  hardly  hope  much  appreciation  of  his  labour  from 
one  who  identified  -tannia  with  ravLa..  When  Casaubon 
came  to  England,  the  acquaintance  went  no  further. 
Camden  lived  now  at  Chiselhurst.  A  journey  thither  was 
the  business  of  half  a  day.  For  some  reason  or  other, 
perhaps  because  of  his  close  connection  with  Wotton 
and  Savile,  Camden  showed  no  desire  to  cultivate 
Casaubon. 

We  do  not  find  that  sir  Robert  Cotton  appreciated 
Casaubon  much  better  than  Camden  did.  We  hear  ^  of 
his  spending  one  day  with  sir  Robert,  or  probably  in  his 
library.  He  could  have  access  to  it,  as  he  offers  to  search 
it  for  the  purposes  of  Charles  Labbe  ^.    And  Cotton  had 

'  Taii'm  =  a  narrow  strip  of  land,  like  a  loose  riband  or  streamer.  See 
Wesseling  on  Diodorus,  i.  36.  Dio  Chrysost.  p.  83.  But  Camden  writes 
■ravia,  or,  in  all  editions  after  the  first,  tania,  and  affirms  that  the  glossarists 
explain  it  as  'regio.'  Casaubon  remarks  that  the  word  is  not  greek.  Perhaps 
Camden  got  his  word  from  Stephanus,  who  says,  Thes.  p.  1308  :  '  At  ravia,  pro 
plaga,  regio,  tractus  terrarum  nescio  unde  afferatur.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  1036.  Ep.  753. 

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3C0  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

pointed  out  to  Casaubon  that '  nos '  was  the  reading  of  the 
passage    in   Rishanger,  where    Parsons   chose    to    print 

I'VOS.' 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  one  cause  of  his 
not  extending  his  acquaintance  more  widely  must  have 
been,  that  his  time  was  now  closely  occupied  with  the 
work  imposed  upon   him. 

We  have  seen  that  Casaubon  contemplated  at  first  only 
a  short  visit  to  this  country.  When  he  became  Overall's 
guest,  he  did  not  think  that  he  should  remain  at  the 
deanery  for  a  whole  year.  His  stay  in  England  was  pro- 
longed '^  from  interval  to  interval,  but  was  still  considered 
by  himself  as  provisional.  He  experienced  a  sense  of 
relief  in  getting  away  from  Paris  ^.  '  My  country,  dear  as 
it  is  to  me  on  many  accounts,  is  become,  by  the  murder  of 
my  prince,  an  object  of  loathing  and  aversion.'  He  cannot 
bear  to  see  those  whose  doctrine  instigated  and  author- 
ised the  deed  lording  it  in  the  scene  of  their  crime. 
Then  the  reception  he  met  with  here,  and  the  succession  of 
occupations  forced  on  him  by  the  king,  detained  him,  but 
always  subject  to  the  pleasure  of  the  french  government. 
'  The  most  christian  king,  whose  subject  and  servant  I  am,' 
is  his  style.  There  was  difficulty  in  getting  leave  for 
Madame  Casaubon  to  come  over ;  greater  still  in  getting 
his  books.  He  was  more  than  a  year  in  England  without 
his  family  and  without  any  of  his  books.  Madame  Casau- 
bon joined  him  in  October  1611.  The  queen  regent  flatly 
refused  permission  for  his  library  to  be  sent  him  *.  More 
than  once  he  learns  that  he  is  to  be  immediately  recalled. 


•  Exercc.  in  Bar.  ded.  p.  12,  and  proleg.,  where  he  quotes  Matthew  Paris, 
'  Vita  Abbatum,'  from  a  ms.  which  sir  R.  Cotton  had  shown  him  '  in  sua  Ubraria.' 
The  letter  in  which  he  aslis  for  these  references  to  be  given  him  on  paper  is  in 
Birch's  papers,  Sloane  mss.  4164.  p.  220. 

^  Ep.  705  :  'Cum  paucos  menses  destinassem  evenit  longe  aliter.' 
^  Epp.  698,  699. 

*  Ephem.  p.  843  :  '  Regina  negat  se  permissuram  ut  deferatur  hue  bibliotheca. 
June,  161 1. 


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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614,  301 

James  had  to  request  as  a  personal  favour  to  himself  the 
loan  of  Casaubon.  His  leave  of  absence  is  indefinitely  pro- 
longed ;  but  he  is  not  discharged.  As  for  his  books  and 
papers,  he  may  have  some  of  them,  just  what  he  requires 
for  the  thing  he  is  now  writing  ^.  These  are  enough  for 
his  shorter  pamphlets ;  but  when  he  comes  to  write 
against  Baronius  he  wants  them  all.  Madame  Casaubon 
returns  to  Paris  to  plead  the  cause.  She  waits  upon  the 
queen :  '  You  have  done  well  to  come  back,'  was  the 
answer  of  Marie  de  Medicis.  '  I  have  written  to  your 
husband  to  return  at  once,  and  it  is  my  pleasure  that  you 
do  not  go  back  to  England  to  him.'  There  had  to  be 
more  negotiations,  a  contest  between  the  two  courts  for 
the  possession  of  Casaubon  ^.  Casaubon  is  to  stay  a  little 
longer ;  Madame  Casaubon  may  return.  The  books, 
some  of  them,  may  go  for  present  use ;  not  all,  a  third 
part,  and  not  the  most  useful  books  ;  ^ '  we  must  retain 
some  lien  upon  our  subject.'  His  french  pension  even  is 
continued  to  him,  but  from  term  to  term.  He  does  not 
consider  himself  permanently  settled ;  when  he  has  done 
with  Baronius  there  is  nothing  that  need  keep  him  in 
England  another  hour  *. 

At  first  he  had  been  a  guest  or  a  lodger  of  the  dean  of 
S.  Paul's;  then  of  Madame  Killigrew.  At  Michaelmas 
161 1,  he  took  a  house  in  S.  Mary  Axe.  The  house  was 
found  for  him  by  Abraham  Aurelius  (Auriol),  minister  of 
the  french  congregation,  who  himself  lived  in  Bishopsgate 
ward^.  S.  Mary  Axe  ran  from  Leadenhall  to  Camomile 
Street,  and  is  described  by  Stowe  as "  'a  street  graced 
with   good   buildings,   and    much    inhabited   by  eminent 

'  Ep.  749  :  '  Nondum  plenam  missionem  a  regina  impetravi.' 

^  Ep.  732  :    '  Uxorem  psene  detinuit  reglna,  vetuit  redire  in  Angliam  ;   sed, 

mox,  consilium  de  rae  revocando  aut  omissum  est,  aut  intermissum.' 
^  Ep.  733  :  '  Ne,  semel  nactus  meam  bibliothecam,  patriae  obliviscar.' 
*  Ep.  8ro:  '  Hunc  librum  si  dedicavero  .  .  .  nihil  est  quod  rae  in  hoc  regno 

vel  horam  unam  teneat.' 

^  Camden  Society,  vol.  82.  p.  70. 
°  Stowe,  Survey  of  London,  1.  420. 

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3oa 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 


merchants.'  At  an  earlier  period  even  country  gentlemen 
had  dwelt  in  S.  Mary  Axe,  as  sir  Edward  Wotton  had  his 
town  house  there.  But  the  Wottons  had  migrated  further 
west  before  Casaubon  came  to  settle  in  the  street.  In 
September  1613,  he  removed  to  one  more  commodious, 
and  further  west,  in  the  '  new  rents,'  Drury  Lane.  He  is 
only  here  provisionally;  and  though  the  discomforts  of 
London  are  great,  the  compensations  are  not  a  few. 
Indeed,  the  two  years,  161 1,  1612,  were,  on  the  whole, 
peaceful  and  not  unhappy  years.  He  enters  in  his  diary, 
on  his  fifty-third  birthday,  an  expression  of  thankfulness, 
that  he  has  passed  the  year  ^  without  serious  disaster,  or 
cause  of  complaint ;  and  this  is  the  only  entry  of  the  kind 
in  the  diary.  The  means  of  subsistence  were  provided 
for  him  not  altogether  insufficiently ;  he  was  honoured 
and  made  much  of  at  court;  above  all,  he  was  happy 
in  the  free  exercise  of  the  rights  of  conscience.  The 
anglican  ritual  exactly  met  his  aspirations  after  the  decent 
simplicity  of  primitive  worship.  Almost  his  first  intro- 
duction to  the  ceremonial  of  our  church  was  on  the 
notable  occasion  of  the  consecration  of  the  Scottish 
bishops,  October  21,  1610.  He  was  highly  pleased  with 
the  order  of  that  service ;  with  the  ordinary  celebration  of 
the  communion  in  S.  Paul's ;  with  the  washing  of  the  feet 
on  Maundy  Thursday ;  though  his  presbyterian  senti- 
ment was  at  first  inclined  to  find  a  little  too  much  pomp  • 
and  pride  mingling  in  the  solemn  scene  of  an  episcopal 
ordination  ^.  But  on  the  whole  he  preferred  the  anglican 
ceremonies  to   the  bare   and  naked  usages   of  his   own 


^  Ephem.  918 :  '  Sine  graviore  noxa  aut  querella.' 

'^  The  same  impression  had  been  made  upon  Sully,  when  he  came  over  in 
1603.  Barlow,  Hampton  Court  conference,  p.  38  :  '  My  lord  of  London  put  his 
majesty  in  mind  of  the  speeches  which  the  french  embassador  Mo*"'.  Rogne 
gave  out  .  .  upon  the  view  of  our  solemne  service  and  ceremonies,  that 
"  If  the  reformed  churches  in  Fraunce  had  kept  the  same  orders  among  them 
which  we  have,  he  was  assured  that  there  would  have  bene  many  thousands  of 
protestants  more  there,  than  now  there  are." ' 


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v.]  LONDON.     161O-1614.  303 

communion.  His  infant  son  James  was  baptized,  and 
Meric  confirmed  ^,  according  to  the  anglican  ritual,  not,  as 
all  their  brothers  and  sisters  had  been,  by  the  calvinistic 
ministers.  He  approves  the  lent  fast,  and  the  use  of  the 
cross  in  baptism.  On  the  points  on  which  the  high  and 
the  low  party  within  the  church  differ,  at  least  on  the  real 
presence  and  on  confession,  he  inclines  rather  to  the 
sacerdotal  side.  But  he  did  not  forsake  the  french 
congregation,  of  which  he  continued  to  be  a  member. 
He  attended  the  preaching  from  time  to  time,  though  not 
seldom  hearing  doctrine  from  which  he  differed,  and 
philology  which  he  knew  to  be  rotten  ^ ;  and  was  on  terms 
of  friendly  intimacy  with  the  ministers  Cappel  and  Auriol, 
who  were  assiduous  in  attending  him  in  his  dying 
moments. 

In  one  main  feature  his  London  life  exactly  resembled 
the  routine  of  Paris.  It  was  a  life  of  incessant  toil,  and  a 
constant  struggle  to  protect  his  time  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  visits  and  visitors.  EngHsh  men  of  letters  at  this 
time  were  few,  and  those  few  did  not  draw  to  Casaubon. 
Casaubon  had  been  accustomed  in  Paris  to  the  gossips 
crowding  to  him  ^.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  enghsh 
callers  would  flock  in  shoals  in  London,  to  the  house  of  a 
man  who  could  not  speak  their  language,  and  who  was 
ignorant  of  what  was  going  on.  Nor  was  London,  Hke 
Paris,  the  resort  of  the  learned  foreigner,  to  whom  it  offered 
no  attraction  either  in  books  or  men.  Here,  too,  Casaubon 
was  free,  both  from  the  pushing  intrusion  of  the  cathoHc 
proselytizer,  and  from  the  sans  ceremonie  of  the  hugue- 
not residents,  made  gregarious  by  common  misery.  He 
was  further  relieved  from  his  duties  at  the  library. 

All  this  was  favourable  to  work.     But  the  claims  on  his 


>  Ephem.  pp,  950.  1054.  823.  817,  818. 

^  Ephem.  p.  854  :  '  Pastorem  Marium  audivi ...  qui  ab  interpretatione  veterum 
et  doctrina  longe  abiit,  nee  minus  a  significatione  verborum  avvepyttv  et 
TtKfoOTJvm:  '  Ephem.  p.  694. 


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304  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

time,  official  and  social,  from  which  he  was  relieved,  were 
replaced  by  others  no  less  troublesome.  In  Paris  he  was 
the  king's  servant,  but  he  did  not  belong  to  the  court.  In 
London  though  of  one  so  humble  it  could  not  be  said  he 
was  '  of  the  court,'  yet,  according  to  the  distinction  drawn 
by  lord  Clarendon  \  he  '  followed '  it.  He  was  with  the 
king,  as  we  have  seen,  every  Sunday,  sometimes  also  on 
week-days,  and  these  were  not  audiences,  but  attendances 
prolonged  for  hours.  With  the  going  and  the  returning, 
the  attendance  never  took  less  than  the  whole  day ;  when 
the  court  was  in  the  country,  two  or  more  days.  When 
from  May  5  to  September  19  he  has  not  seen  the  king,  he 
thinks  this  a  long  interval  ^.  James,  who  was  on  progress 
in  the  southern  counties,  returned  to  Whitehall  on 
September  8,  but  did  not  stay  ^,  and  on  September  19 
Casaubon  goes  out  to  Theobald's,  and  is  honoured  with  a 
long  and  serious  colloquy  on  various  matters  *.  He  must 
also  occasionally  visit  prince  Henry ;  after  his  death, 
prince  Charles  ;  often  the  archbishop.  The  archbishop  is 
out  at  Croydon.  This,  we  might  imagine,  would  consume 
the  whole  day,  yet  Casaubon  will  find  time  after  his  return 
to  write  some  part  of  the  genealogy  of  the  Herods.  He  is 
invited  to  dine  by  the  bishops,  by  the  french  ambassador, 
by  the  ambassador  of  the  czar  of  Muscovy,  by  the  prince 
of  Baden,  by  the  lord  mayor  of  London.  Overall  takes 
him  to  the  banquet  of  the  Merchant  Taylors,  than  which 
'he  never  saw  anything  more  magnificent.'  He  is  often 
at  Madame  Killigrew's,  sees  much  of  the  french  pastors, 
as  of  his  compatriot,  Theodore  de  Mayerne  =,  first  phy- 
sician to  the  king,  and  of  Raphael  Thoris.    Abraham  Scul- 

'  Clarendon,  Life,  i.  36  :  '  Thomas  Carew  .  .  .  followed  the  court,  which  the 
modesty  of  that  time  disposed  men  to  do,  sometime  before  they  pretended  to  be 
of  it.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  1014.  =  Nichols,  Progr.  of  James  i,  2.  677. 

*  Ephem.  p.  1014  :  '  Gravia  cum  rege  de  rebus  variis  habui  coUoquia.' 

'  Theodore  Turquet  was  born  at  Geneva,  1573,  and  may  have  known 
Casaubon  at  Montpellier,  where  he  took  the  degree  of  m.e.  1597. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  305 

tetus,  then  residing  in  London,  is  much  with  him  and 
welcome.  Occasional  visits  from  foreigners,  though  more 
rare  than  at  Paris,  happened  now  and  then ;  as  when  the 
due  de  Bouillon,  attended  by  his  Sedan  ministers,  Justell, 
Cappel,  Du  Tiloir,  came  over  and  had  to  be  attended  to. 
James,  in  his  capacity  of  theologian,  is  professionally 
curious  to  have  explained  to  him  the  points  of  doctrine  in 
which  the  church  of  Sedan  differs  from  the  church  of 
Paris.  Then  a  new  libel  of  Scioppius  appears,  and  has  to 
be  read  and  elucidated  to  the  king.  '  Ite  studia !  nihil 
vobiscum  mihi ;  ecce  totum  diem  in  aula  egi  ad  10  horam 
noctis,'  is  the  entry  on  May  15.  He  may  say  his  friends 
are  few,  but  they  are  too  numerous  for  continuous  work. 
'  June  7,  1612.  Roused  out  of  bed  almost  before  break  of 
day  to  attend  upon  some  friends,  which  took  a  long  time.' 
•  June  18.  Went  to  spend  the  day  with  the  excellent  Bed- 
well,  with  my  wife  ; '   and  so  on. 

Of  the  foreign  visitants  who  came  to  him  in  London 
two  deserve  separate  mention.  The  young  Georg  Calix- 
tus  was  in  London,  in  the  summer  of  1612,  in  the  course 
of  that  four  years'  travel,  by  which  he  sought  to  counteract 
in  himself  the  narrowing  influence  of  the  lutheran  bigotry, 
by  which  he  was  surrounded  even  in  liberal  Helmstadt^. 
Calixtus,  though  only  twenty-six,  had  already  conceived 
the  idea  of  going  back  to  the  study  of  the  fathers,  in  order 
to  retrieve  religion  from  the  suspended  animation  in 
which  it  was  held  in  the  orthodox  formularies.  At  his 
age  Calixtus  must  have  been  without  acquisitions,  but  he 
possessed  vision  and  aims.  The  young  aspirant,  who 
had  raised  himself  above  lutheranism,  was  naturally  anxious 
to  approach  the  veteran  scholar,  who  was  known  to  have 
himself  emerged  from  Calvinism.  Casaubon  granted  him 
two  interviews,  which  naturally  left  a  deeper  impression 
on  the  younger,  than  on  the  older,  man.  Calixtus,  whose 
life   labour  was  an  '  Irenicon,'  may  have  found  himself 

1  Georg  Calixtus,  b.  1586,  f  1656- 
X 

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306  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Strengthened  by  the  sympathy  which  Casaubon  would 
accord  to  this  direction  of  his  youthful  admirer.  Casau- 
bon, who  was  in  infrequent  correspondence  with  Caselius 
(Johann  Chessel),  Calixtus'  teacher,  would  be  able  to 
learn  that  even  among  the  lutherans  there  were  some  not 
so  wholly  lost  to  humanity  as  Scaliger  used  to  affirm^. 
But  Casaubon  was  now  absorbed  day  and  night  in  the  push 
to  finish  the  '  Exercitationes,'  and  even  so  promising  a 
visitor  as  Calixtus  counted  only  as  one  more  thief  of  time. 
On  the  day  on  which  he  saw  Calixtus  the  second  time, 
Casaubon  has  only  entered  in  the  diary  '  sacra  synaxis, 
amici,  studia^.'  Beyond  the  brief  remark  that  he  had 
found  him  ^ '  learned  and  of  no  common  taste  in  letters,' 
there  is  no  note  of  their  intercourse.  With  this  recom- 
mendation he  sent  off  Calixtus  to  de  Thou  in  Paris. 

With  his  other  visitor,  a  name  of  greater  renown  than 
Calixtus,  Casaubon,  though  at  high  pressure  on  Baronius, 
spent,  reluctant  yet  willing,  many  hours,  even  days. 
Grotius*  was  in  London  in  March  and  April,  1613.  He 
was  already  in  correspondence,  and  in  ecclesiastical  sym- 
pathy, established  through  correspondence,  with  Casau- 
bon. Their  point  of  view  was  sufficiently  like  for  them  to 
be  classed  by  the  historians  *  together  among  the  waverers. 
Their  aim,  the  reunion  of  Christendom,  was  the  same. 
They  sought  it  by  different  roads  ;  Grotius,  by  the  states- 
man's road  of  a  political  comprehension  ;  Casaubon,  by 
the  theologian's,  a  merging  of  minor  differences  in  a  com- 
mon Christianity,  on  the  basis  of  the  primitive  centuries. 
Casaubon  was  introduced  to  Grotius  at  the  young  prince 
of  Baden's  lodging.  On  this  occasion  they  had  a  long  ^ 
conversation,  and  met  afterwards  as  often  as  they  could. 
Casaubon  took  him  to  dine '  at  the  dean's,  the  bishop  of 

'  Scaligerana  2".  p.  151  ;  '  Martinistes,  il  n'y  a  point  de  gens  si  ignorans  et 
barbares  qu'eux  en  Alemagne.'  '^  Ephem.  p.  936. 

^  Ep.  818 :  '  Doetum  et  judicii  in  literis  non  vulgaris.' 

•  Grotius,  b.  1583,  f  1645.  s  E.  g.  by  Hallam,  a.  31a. 

"  Ephem.  p.  975  :  '  Detentus  diu.'  '  Ep.  886. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  307 

Ely's,  and  the  french  embassy.  On  April  30,  Grotius  and 
the  dean  were  entertained  at  supper  by  Casaubon.  Gro- 
tius says  ^  that  '  they  saw  each  other  daily.'  Common 
sentiments  brought  them  together,  but  Casaubon  soon 
felt  the  personal  fascination  of  Grotius'  talk.  He  cannot 
express  ^  the  happiness  he  enjoys  in  this  intercourse.  '  I 
knew  him  before  to  be  a  wonderful  man ;  but  the  superi- 
ority of  that  divine  genius  no  one  can  properly  appreciate, 
without  seeing  his  countenance,  and  hearing  his  conver- 
sation. Integrity  is  stamped  on  his  face ;  in  his  talk  is 
exhibited  the  union  of  exquisite  learning  and  genuine 
piety.  Nor  is  it  I  only  who  am  so  taken  with  our  visitor  ; 
all  the  learned  and  good  who  have  been  introduced  to 
him  have  fallen  under  the  spell,  and  the  king  more  than 
any  one.'  Upon  Grotius'  mind  the  memory  of  this  inter- 
course remained  still  fresh  after  five-and-twenty  years. 
In  1639  he  writes  ^  to  Gronovius  (J.  F.),  '  Of  the  pieces  of 
good  fortune  which  have  befallen  me  in  the  course  of  my 
life,  I  reckon  it  among  the  chief  that  I  had  the  regard  and 
affection  of  that  great  man,  whose  piety,  honesty,  and  can- 
dour, were  not  less  remarkable  than  his  vast  all-embracing 
erudition.  I  can  look  back,  without  sadness,  to  those 
times,  gloomy  as  they  were,  and  those  trying  occasions,  in 
which  I  guided  myself  by  his  counsel,  and  those  of  the 
party  which  he  approved.' 

He  contrived  to  make  all  these  calls  upon  his  time 
compatible  with  unremitting  industry  at  his  desk.  The 
whole  space  of  time  lived  in  England  was  three  years  and 
eight  months,  a  period  of  broken  health  and  ebbing 
strength.  In  this  time  he  wrote :  i.  Epistola  ad  Fron- 
tonem,  171  pp.  4to.  2.  Responsio  ad  epistolam  Card. 
Perronii,  81  pp.  4to.  3.  Exercitationes  in  Baronium,  830 
pp.  fol.  4.  Epistola  ad  Lingelshemium  de  quodam  Scioppii 
libello.     5.  To  these  must  be  added  the  letters,  both  of 

^  Grotii  Ep.  ep.  184.  app. :  '  Cum  quotidie  simul  essemus.' 

^  Ep.  881.  '  Grotii  Epp.  ep.  1168. 

X   2 

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308  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

business  and  friendship,  of  which  some  280,  written  in 
England,  have  been  recovered  and  pubHshed.  These 
letters  would  form  a  thick  8vo  volume,  reckoning  the 
average  length  of  a  letter  at  two  pages.  But  we  know, 
from  the  diary,  that  the  published  letters  are  but  a  part  of 
what  he  threw  off,  all  from'  his  own  pen.  There  is  of 
course  some  repetition  of  the  sense,  thoughts,  and  words 
to  different  correspondents.  On  the  other  hand,  many- 
are  elaborate  compositions,  some  of  considerable  length, 
and  nearly  all  in  latin.  Letter  writting  was  a  material 
part  of  every  day's  work ;  when  a  foreign  courier  was 
starting,  the  whole  day  was  often  thus  occupied.  The 
letters,  even  if  not  on  affairs  of  consequence,  are  always 
worded  with  care  and  thought,  and  the  latin,  though 
without  the  racy  flavour  of  Scaliger's  latin  style,  is  by 
no  means  commonplace.  6.  The  diary  continued  to  be 
regularly  kept,  and  the  english  portion  of  this  occupies 
295  pages  Bvo  of  print. 

Over  and  above  what  he  writes  himself,  he  has  to  read 
over,  and  advise  upon,  what  others  write.  When  he 
arrived  in  England,  October  1610,  Andrewes  had  nearly 
completed  his  '  Responsio'  to  card.  Bellarmine's  '  Apo- 
logia.' Casaubon  had  the  task  of  reading  this  over,  and 
making  corrections,  which  corrections  the  author  adopted  ^ 
Then  he  had  to  begin  the  '  Epistola  ad  Frontonem.' 
The  writing,  correcting,  and  printing  this  took  up  the 
greater  part  of  161 1.  When  this  task  was  disposed  of,  he 
hopes  to  be  able  to  get  his  time  for  his  own  readings.  He 
has  immediately  to  begin  another,  the  '  Epistola  ad  Card. 
Perronium.'  He  composes  this,  or  rather  writes  it  over, 
in  a  few  days,  for  the  matter  is  supplied  by  the  king  ^,  and 
Casaubon  has  only  to  find  the  latin.     But  the  king  and 

'  Ephem.  p.  792 :  '  Meas  notulas  non  neglexit,  imo  pluris  fecit,  quam  mere- 
ban  tun' 

^  Ep.  839  :  '  Le  roy  s'est  servi  de  moi  pour  secretaire,  mais  la  piece  est  de  sa 
majesty     .     .     .     il  a  exactement  medite  cette  sienne  reponse.' 

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v.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  309 

the  coterie  of  bishops  had  to  revise  and  retouch.  The 
court  was  at  Royston,  and  it  was  the  hunting  season.  It 
took  time  to  get  the  piece  corrected,  and  written  over,  so 
that  it  was  not  sent  to  the  cardinal  till  Dec.  29,  1611. 
We  may  easily  understand  that  it  took  more  trouble  and 
time  to  be  secretary  to  the  epistle,  than  to  have  composed 
it.  It  was  sent  to  the  cardinal  in  ms,  but  he  printed  it, 
with  his  own,  to  which  it  was  the  answer,  in  Paris. 
Casaubon  was  ordered  by  the  king  to  print  an  authorised 
edition  in  London,  and  to  write  a  preface,  which  was  to  be 
at  the  same  time  an  answer  to  another  libel  of  one  Pelle- 
tier,  a  Jesuit.  The  preface  was  to  be  his  own,  and  yet  he 
was  to  be  told  what  he  was  to  say  in  it.  Before  the  book 
was  off  his  hands  came  a  pamphlet  of  Vorstius,  which  so 
absorbed  James  that  for  days  he  could  talk  of  nothing 
else  ^,  and  Casaubon  must  be  there  to  be  talked  to  about 
it.  James  must  reply  to  Vorstius.  But  Casaubon  is  not 
to  be  used  against  the  arminian  heretics.  He  is  hardly 
sound  himself  there  ^,  and  besides  he  is  to  be  kept  for  the 
catholic  controversy.  And  he  is  no  longer  to  be  frittered 
away  in  this  skirmishing  business.  He  is  to  attack  the 
Annals  of  Baronius  ^.  This  was  a  compromise  ;  Casaubon 
would  be  contending  for  the  cause,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  would  be  treating  matter  which  had  more  interest 
for  him  than  the  pamphlets  on  which  the  last  eighteen 
months  had  been  spent. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  that  Casaubon,  who  could 
have  done  work  which  no  one  else  could,  should  have 
been  kept  to  writing  pamphlets,  which  scores  of  others 
could  have  written  quite   as  well.     But  it  must  not  be 

1  Ep.  799 :  '  Serenissimum  regem  ita  occupatam  animi  mentem  habuisse 
in  recente  quodam  libro  Vorstii,  ut  plures  dies  alia  de  re  fere  nulla  mecum 
ageret.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  896  :  '  Laudo  regis  zelum  pro  religione.  scimus  viros  graves, 
et  apprime  doctos  de  Bertio  non  ita  sentire,  neque  de  Arminio.' 

3  Ep.  810:  'Ut  immunitatera  aliarum  angariarum  mihi  pararem,  et  maximo 
tamen  regi  satisfacerem.' 

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310  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

supposed  that  he  shared  this  regret  himself,  or  that  he 
was  writing  as  a  hired  advocate  for  a  cause  in  which  he 
was  lukewarm.  It  is  to  him,  not  the  cause  of  the  king 
and  bishops  in  which  he  is  fighting,  it  is  the  cause  of  the 
church  of  God,  the  cause  of  civil  society  against  the 
common  enemy,  the  bishop  of  Rome,  and  his  emissaries. 
Coming  from  France,  he  knew,  better  than  the  anglican 
bishops,  what  that  ultramontane  yoke  meant,  against  which 
the  english  church  was  struggling.  He  tells  Schott  ^  that 
it  was  horror  at  the  assassination  of  his  prince  that  had 
driven  him  to  the  meditation  of  this  subject  of  the  roman 
claims.  In  writing  his  '  Epistola  ad  Frontonem  '  in  defence 
of  James,  he  was  thinking  of  Henri  iv.  The  act  of 
Ravaillac  was  well  understood  to  be  the  legitimate,  how- 
ever remote,  result  of  the  theories  of  the  ultramontane 
school.  He  writes  to  HoescheP,  'If  you  want  to  know 
the  cause  of  the  king's  death,  read  the  "  Directorium 
Inquisitionis."  The  murder  of  my  great  Maecenas  has 
so  enraged  me  against  the  mystery  of  iniquity,  that  I 
think  it  now  a  part  of  my  religion  to  make  public  pro- 
fession of  belief  (in  the  royal  supremacy).' 

The  anti-papal  controversy  of  James'  reign  is  as  obsolete 
for  our  generation  as  any  other  theological  squabble,  and 
the  books,  in  which  it  is  consigned,  are  equally  forgotten ; 
Casaubon's  among  the  rest.  But  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  situation  of  affairs  at  that  period,  are 
aware  that  this  was  no  brawl  of  rival  divines.  The 
cathoHc  historian'*,  following  the  catholic  reporter  La 
Boderie,  draws  a  ludicrous  picture  of  James,  withdrawing 
from  affairs  of  state  and  the  pleasures  of  the  chase, 
shutting  himself  up  with  his  doctors,  and  concocting  an 
argument  to  prove  the  pope  to  be  anti-christ.     Nothing 

Ep.  777  :  '  Ipse  ixiiiv  aeKovri  ye  Bv/jw  ad  tractationem  ejusmodi  argument! 
animum  appuli.  quis  coegit  ?  inquies.  dicam  tibi  quod  res  est.  ilia  atra  et  nefasta 
dies,'  etc.  2  Ep.  827. 

^  Lingard,  Hist,  of  Engl.  7.  78;  cf.  Churchill,  Gotham,  6.  2;  'And  pamphlets 
wrote  when  he  should  save  the  state.' 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  311 

that  James  did  was  done  becomingly.  His  pedantic 
vanity  laid  him  open  to  the  sarcasms  of  the  french  am- 
bassador. At  a  later  period  he  forfeited  the  confidence 
of  his  subjects  by  a  catholic  policy;  by  the  Spanish 
negotiation,  the  french  match,  and  the  inadequate  support 
of  his  son-in-law  and  the  protestants  of  Germany.  But  in 
161 1  he  was  heartily  contending  against  the  still  advancing 
tide  of  the  catholic  reaction.  The  form  in  which  this  was 
threatening  Europe  was  indeed  that  of  military  force,  but 
it  was  also  an  invasion  of  opinion.  The  Jesuits  did  not 
draw  the  sword  in  Germany  until  they  had  gained  a 
footing  in  the  minds  of  men.  The  books  and  pamphlets 
they  were  now  disseminating  were  what  made  the  thirty 
years'  war  possible.  When  the  enemy  was  successfully 
avaihng  himself  of  the  power  of  the  press,  it  was  wise 
and  necessary  that  he  should  be  niet  on  the  same  ground. 
Nor  was  James  fighting  for  his  own  skin,  nor  even,  as  he 
phrased  it,  for  the  rights  of  princes.  The  hopes  of  the 
ultramontane  party  at  this  moment  embraced  no  less  than 
the  re-conquest  of  Christendom  to  the  holy  see ;  the  exter- 
mination of  heresy  by  fire  and  sword,  as  Scioppius  had 
boldly  proclaimed  in  his  Ecclesiasticus  (161 1).  It  was  no 
mere  paper  warfare.  The  powder-plot,  which  we  try  to 
forget,  or  laugh  at,  was  a  recent  fact;  the  murder  of 
Henri  iv.  more  recent  still.  The  S.  Bartholomew,  the 
Armada,  and  the  cruelties  of  Alva  in  Flanders,  were  not 
incidents  of  a  legendary  fore-time,  but  the  exploits  in 
which  a  menacing  and  aggressive  party  gloried,  and  which 
they  hoped  to  repeat  or  to  outdo. 

Casaubon's  share  in  the  interchange  of  pamphlets 
between  England  and  Rome  was  not  large,  though  it 
was  more  than  could  be  well  spared  out  of  a  life  which 
closed  at  fifty-six. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  the  powder-plot,  by 
its  atrocity,  would  have  originated  a  reaction  against  the 
party  by  which  it  was  conceived.    This  was  the  case  in 

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312  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

our  own  country.  But  not  so  on  the  continent.  The 
ultramontane  pamphleteers  had  been  able  to  excite  con- 
siderable sympathy  for  the  conspirators,  and  especially 
for  Garnett.  He  was  represented  by  them  as  a  martyr 
to  the  inviolability  of  the  secret  of  confession.  These 
representations  were  making  so  deep  an  impression  on 
the  public,  that,  when  they  reached  England,  authenticated 
in  an  elaborate  statement  by  cardinal  Bellarmine,  it  was 
necessary  to  oppose  some  official  denial  ^  This  was  done 
by  the  king  himself  in  his  own  name.  James  published  a 
'  Monitory  epistle  to  all  christian  monarchs,  free  princes, 
and  states,'  and  prefixed  it  to  a  new  edition  (1609)  of  his 
former  pamphlet,  'Triplici  nodo  triplex  cuneus.'  In  this 
monitory  epistle  he  asserted  that  Garnett  had  acknow- 
ledged his  being  cognisant  of  the  plot,  otherwise  than  in 
confession.  At  the  same  time  a  more  elaborate  answer 
was  prepared  by  Andrewes,  then  bishop  of  Chichester, 
in  which  this  thesis  was  maintained  at  greater  length, 
and  authenticated  by  citation  of  Garnett's  written  con- 
fessions. This  answer  was  published,  in  1609,  under  the 
title  of  '  Tortura  Torti,'  and  has  a  historical  value,  because 
two  of  the  papers  cited  as  written  by  Garnett  are  no 
longer  extant  among  the  rest  of  the  original  papers 
relating  to  the  plot.  But  so  strongly  was  the  current  of 
feeling  running  in  favour  of  the  ultramontane  party,  and 
so  superior  were  the  means  of  influencing  opinion  pos- 
sessed by  the  Jesuits  to  those  which  the  protestants  could 
employ,  that  neither  the  king's  affirmation,  nor  the  bishop's 
vouchers,  could  stem  the  tide.  The  belief  in  Saint  Garnett, 
the  martyr  of  the  secret  of  confession,  grew  amain,  and 
soon  blossomed  into  a  miracle.  The  myth  of  Garnett's 
straw,  germinating  in  the  fancy  of  a  silly  enthusiast,  grew 
in  a  short  space  into  such  proportions  that  it  became  the 
theme  of  a  diplomatic  correspondence.     Received  with 

'  Bellarmine's  book  is  '  Responsio  Matthsei  Torti     ...     ad  librum  inscrip- 
tum,  Triplici  nodo  triplex  cuneus.'     Col.  Agripp.  1608. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  313 

entire  faith  in  catholic  countries,  the  legend  excited  so 
much  interest  in  Spain,  that  the  english  ambassador  was 
directed  to  make  a  representation  to  the  Spanish  authorities 
on  the  subject  \  It  was  thought  that  Casaubon's  name 
might  help  to  abate  the  delusion,  which  was  gaining  for 
the  catholic  party  dangerous  sympathies.  English  tes- 
timony was  of  light  weight  in  catholic  countries ;  it  was 
thought  that  the  attestation  of  an  independent  foreigner, 
whose  character  for  veracity  was  unimpeachable,  might 
be  listened  to.  This  is  the  origin  of  Casaubon's  'Epistola 
ad  Frontonem,'  1612,  of  which  David  Jardine  says  that 
'though  new  to  this  kind  of  writing,  Casaubon  acquitted 
himself  well  in  it.'  His  statement  wants  the  keen  edge 
and  point  of  Andrewes'  dialectic,  but  it  is  also  free  from 
the  bishop's  cavil  and  passion  for  verbal  victory.  Having 
to  deal  with  opponents  whose  case  was  a  tissue  of  un- 
scrupulous misrepresentation,  he  meets  their  perversity 
not  with  excited  passion,  but  with  a  grave  statement  of 
the  simple  facts.  It  is  characteristic  that  he  is  more 
angry  when  he  has  to  correct  Baronius'  chronological 
errors,  or  mistranslations  of  greek,  than  over  the  most 
provoking  distortion  of  fact  in  the  Jesuit  account  of  the 
powder  conspiracy.  He  earned  the  praise  of  moderation, 
but  beyond  this  he  neither  obtained  credit  for  his  clients, 
nor  reputation  for  himself,  by  going  into  the  quarrel.  He 
became  a  mark  for  the  vulgar  personalities  which  are  the 
ordinary  missiles  in  party  warfare.  Hitherto  he  had  lived 
for  science,  in  a  region  apart,  where  he  reigned  without 
rivalry  or  contradiction.  He  had  now  descended  into  the 
arena  where,  muscle  for  muscle,  the  arm  of  a  butcher 
might  be  more  powerful  than  his. 


•  Winwood's  Mem.  2.  336.  Cornwallis  to  Salisbury,  August  29,  1607.  The 
growth  of  the  fable  of  '  Garnett's  straw '  is  traced  in  detail  by  Jardine,  Gun- 
powder Plot,  pp.  266  seq.  In  this  instance,  as  in  that  of  La  Salette,  we  have 
in  our  hands  the  means  of  following,  step  by  step,  the  genesis  of  a  catholic 
legend. 

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314  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

There  was,  of  course,  an  '  answer '  forthcoming  to  the 
'  Epistola  ad  Frontonem.'  It  was  from  a  Jesuit  pen, 
and  one  only  second  in  its  clever  smartness  to  that  of 
Scioppius  ^  The  '  Responsio '  of  Andreas  Eudaemon- 
Joannes,  stripped  of  its  flippant  rhetoric,  reduces  itself 
to  a  reassertion  of  what  Bellarmine  had  before  affirmed, 
viz.  that  Garnett  had  been  executed  for  not  divulging 
the  secret  of  confession.  But  it  was  quite  successful. 
Reassertion  was  argument  enough  for  the  catholic 
pubhc.  As  Casaubon  had  failed  to  reach  them,  Abbot, 
the  regius  proffessor  of  divinity,  was  put  on  the  con- 
troversy, and  restated  the  case  of  the  crown  in  greater 
detail,  and  with  more  elaborate  proof  In  vain.  Abbot 
had  no  greater  success  than  Andrewes  or  Casaubon. 
CathoHc  literature  had  become  a  system  of  falsehood 
and  imposture.  Catholic  histories  continued,  and  con- 
tinue still,  to  repeat  that  Garnett  had  suffered,  not  for 
treason,  but  for  religion. 

Upon  this  vain  effort  to  stem  the  reactionary  flood,  our 
scholar  had  flung  away  precious  months.  It  may  have 
been  some  perception  of  this  waste  of  power  which  deter- 
mined the  king's  resolution  that  Casaubon  should  do  no 
more  pamphlet  work.  He  is  to  have  no  more  tasks  set 
him.  His  whole  time  shall  be  devoted  to  the  work  on 
church  history. 

We  have  seen  how,  in  the  earliest  days,  Casaubon  had 
desired  to  devote  himself  to  sacred  studies.  Both  his 
literary  ambition,  and  his  love  of  learning,  concurred  in 
taking  this  colour  from  the  deep  religious  impressions  of 
his  youth.  We  have  seen  how  he  became  a  classical 
student  and  editor  in  spite  of  himself  Strabo,  Suetonius, 
Athenaeus,  Polybius,  and  the  rest,  were  successively  taken 

'  Eudsemon- Joannes'  book  is  '  Responsio  ad  epistolam  Isaaci  Casauboni.'  The 
only  edition  I  have  seen  is  Colon.  Agripp.  1612,  but  it  may  be  a  reprint. 
Abbot's  book  is  '  Anlilogia  adversus  apologiam  Andreee  Eudsemon-Joannis.' 
Londini,  1613,  4°. 

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v.]  LONDON.     1610-16x4.  315 

up  as  interimistic  jobs,  mere  exercises  to  keep  his  hand 
in,  till  he  could  get  freed  from  the  entanglements  of  life, 
into  the  pure  empyrean  of  that  happy  leisure  which  formed 
his  ideal,  when  he  would  concentrate  his  matured  powers 
upon  sacred  criticism.  This  longed-for  ^ '  otium '  we  have 
seen  him  pursue  from  Geneva  to  MontpeUier,  from  Mont- 
pellier  to  Paris,  from  Paris  to  London,  as  the  vision  still 
fled  before  him.  He  is  now,  April,  1612,  in  his  fifty-fourth 
year.  Though  entered  on  the  decline  of  life,  though  a 
friendly  physician  can  read  the  fatal  sign  on  his  brow,  he 
feels  no  intellectual  decay  ;  he  may  still  have  years  before 
him  enough  for  the  production  of  some  capital  work  on 
the  antiquities  of  the  church.  He  is  removed  above  want, 
if  not  altogether  above  anxiety  on  the  score  of  provision 
for  his  family.  He  is  to  have  no  more  pamphlet  work. 
He  may  select  his  own  subject,  or  rather  the  subject  he 
has  already  selected  himself  is  the  very  one  which  will 
best  please  his  patron. 

The  refutation  of  Baronius  was  an  employment  which 
was  not  suggested  to  him  first  in  England.  We  have 
seen  that  he  had  long  meditated  it.  In  1605  he  only  took 
up  Polybius  because  the  ultramontane  policy  of  Henri  iv. 
dared  not  permit  criticism  on  a  book  which  the  see  of 
Rome  would  not  allow  to  be  contradicted^.  Now  that 
he  is  free,  he  recurs  to  his  cherished  idea.  He  will  satisfy 
himself  by  writing  on  church  history.  He  will  satisfy  his 
party  by  destroying  the  credit  of  the  catholic  historian. 

The  early  and  constant  bent  of  Casaubon's  mind  had 
been  towards  theology.  But  what  was  commonly  known 
by  this  name,  doctrinal  or  systematic  theology,  as  taught 
in  the  schools,  lay  entirely  outside  his  walk.  His  reading 
had  led  him  at  once  to  the  sources  out  of  which  had  been 


'  Ep.  1023 :  '  Omnino  otia  quaerimus,  si  ita  modo  visum  fuerit  D.  O.  M.  Ea 
enim  molimur  in  Uteris,  quae  animi  tranquillitatem  desiderant.' 

^  '  Quasi  a  Baronio  dissentire  sit  nefas,'  says  Rigaltius,  Contin.  Thuani,  6. 
470. 

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3l6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

constructed  that  ^'web  of  subtlety  and  spinosity,'  the 
scholastic  theology.  He  was  in  possession,  as  hardly 
any  one  else  had  been,  of  the  key  of  ecclesiastical  anti- 
quity. Having  exhausted  heathen  greek,  he  had  gone  on 
into  christian  greek.  At  first  as  greek  only,  but  he  had 
found  it  full  of  a  new  interest.  Casaubon  never  reads  as 
a  grammarian  in  pursuit  of  words.  He  is  thoroughly 
realistic.  He  is,  indeed,  quite  alive  to  the  importance  of 
seizing  the  exact  sense  of  words,  but  only  for  the  sake  of 
that  which  is  to  be  learnt  from  the  words.  The  true  ap- 
proach to  christian  antiquity  is  through  pagan  antiquity. 
The  continuity  of  history  is  complete.  There  is  no  break. 
As  the  christian  empire  is  the  pagan  empire  under  a  new 
name,  so  christian  literature  is  the  outcome  of  the  greek 
classical  literature.  It  is  not  only  built  up  with  the  old 
materials,  like  the  forts  which  the  Turks  constructed  with 
the  sculptured  blocks  of  the  greek  temples,  it  issues  from 
the  greek  sources  of  thought.  In  earlier  times,  Casaubon 
had  dreamed  of  treating  this  period  of  literature  in  the 
spirit  of  learned  research.  In  1596,  at  Geneva,  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  acquirement,  he  had  proposed  to  bring 
out  Athenaeus  first,  then  to  dispose  in  like  manner  of 
Polybius,  after  which  he  would  ^ '  set  an  example  to  our 
side,  that,  forsaking  these  gladiatorial  combats  so  perni- 
cious to  the  christian  world,  they  should  busy  themselves 
rather  in  illustrating  the  affairs  of  the  ancient  church,  and 
the  holy  fathers.'  Gradually  he  is  drawn  into  the  vortex 
of  controversy.  Instead  of  approaching  the  history  of 
the  church  from  the  classical  side,  he  will  approach  it 
from  the  modern  side,  and  the  interests  of  his  own  day. 
The  conception  which  he  had  formed  of  christian  archae- 
ology fades,   and   mixes  itself  with  the  idea  of  proving 

'  Bacon,  Advancement  of  Learning. 

''  Ep.  1008  ;  '  Majus  opus  movebimus  et  nostro  exempio  praeibimus  hominibus 
partium  nostrarum  ut  ad  res  veteris  ecclesias  et  sanctissimos  patres  illustrandos 
novam  operam  conferre  malint,  quam  ad  andabaticas  istas  pugnas,  toti  orbi 
christiano  tam  perniciosas.' 

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v.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  317 

how  far  the  church  of  Rome  has  strayed  from  primitive  ] 
faith  and  worship.  His  indignation  at  the  blunders  of 
Baronius  is  as  keen  as  ever,  but  he  is  no  longer  the 
scholar  indignant  at  a  literary  impostor;  he  is  the  theo- 
logical polemic,  burning  to  turn  these  blunders  to  account 
in  the  quarrel  of  his  church  with  Rome.  The  centre  of 
his  interests,  which  once  was  scientific,  has  become  de- 
nominational. He  who  in  1605  had  written  to  Du  Perron  ^ 
the  proud  boast  that  all  his  studious  hours  had  been  given 
to  the  search  of  truth,  not  to  exhibitions  in  the  arena  of 
paper  warfare,  was  catching  the  infection  from  his  environ- 
ment, and  on  the  way  to  rejoice  in  fighting.  He  regularly 
reads  the  flying  sheets  with  which  the  press  teems,  which 
kind  friends  send  him  sometimes  in  early  copies,  before 
publication,  and  in  which  he  now  finds  his  own  name 
recur  with  increasing  frequency.  He  knows  what  answers 
are  in  preparation,  and  rejoices  beforehand  in  their 
crushing  eff"ect.  ^ '  As  for  Bellarmine's  book,'  he  says 
on  one  occasion,  '  I  can  leave  it  alone,  as  he  will  soon 
see  it  quashed  by  Barclay  fils  as  dead  as  a  mouse  in  a 
trap.' 

This  being  Casaubon's  own  disposition,  we  cannot 
charge  it  upon  the  english  king  and  bishops,  that  he 
gave  the  rest  of  his  life  to  antagonistic  writing,  and  that 
he  threw  his  learning  into  the  unfortunate  shape  of  a 
critique  on  Baronius. 

Casaubon  had  never  seen  the  '  Annales '  till  the  summer 
of  1598.  Geneva  was  too  poor  to  buy  books,  and  the 
circulation  of  Baronius,  large  as  it  was,  was  wholly 
catholic.  Protestant  cities,  such  as  Geneva  and  Mont- 
pellier,  had  probably  not  seen  a  copy.     During  his  stay 

'  Ep.  417:  'Ego  vigilias  omnes  meas  amori  veritatis  in  quocunque  genere 
literarum  semper  impend!,  non  Koyo/iaxiais  irpis  eiriSei^iv  comparatis.' 

^  Ep.  ad  Front,  p.  38  :  '  Qui  suum  ilium  librum  ...  a  Barclai  filio  .  . 
videbit  brevi  soricina  neenia  confossiorem  redditum.'  [Soncina  nenia  ^Plautus, 
Bacchides,  iv.  8.  48)  apparently  means  'a  mouse-meat  sausage.'  For  nenia  in 
this  sense,  see  Arnobius  vii.  24,  25,  and  Festus,  pp.  161,  163,  Muller.] 

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31 8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

in  de  Vic's  house  at  Lyon  in  1598,  Casaubon  first  fell 
in  with  some  of  the  earlier  volumes'.  At  de  Vic's  sug- 
gestion, he  sent  a  letter  to  Baronius,  expressing  the 
sentiments  of  respect  and  admiration  which  had  been 
excited  in  him  by  the  first  reading.  Baronius  returned, 
in  1599,  a  copy  of  his  8th  volume,  which  was  just  out, 
and  a  civil  reply  ^,  in  which  he  persisted  in  regarding 
Casaubon's  compliment  as  a  feeler.  '  He  rejoiced  to 
find  him  knocking  at  the  gate  of  the  church,  for  no  less 
could  he  understand  by  his  commending  the  work  of 
an  orthodox  man.'  In  an  Italian,  a  cardinal,  and  a  holy 
man,  we  might  naturally  view  this  letter  as  preluding  to 
a  bargain.  And  Clement  viii.  did,  afterwards,  send  Casau- 
bon an  intimation  that  he  might  have  a  pension  of  1300 
crowns  if  he  chose  to  go  to  Rome  for  it.  But  the  suspi- 
cion would  be  unjust  to  the  simple-minded  character  of 
Baronius^.  His  narrow  education  led  him  to  regard  the 
ark  of  Peter  as  possessing  the  same  supernatural  attrac- 
tions for  all,  which  it  had  for  himself  Casaubon,  an 
equally  candid  soul,  took  the  letter  in  this  light,  as  a 
proffer  of  amity.  In  1603,  he  sent  the  return  compliment, 
in  the  shape  of  a  copy,  or  promise  to  send  one  the  first 
opportunity,  of  his  '  Historiae  Augustae  Scriptores,'  with 
a  civil  allusion  to  the  places  in  the  notes  in  which  * '  my 
calculations  differ  from  yours.'  Baronius  replied,  not 
expressing  any  interest  in  the  Augustan  historians,  or 
in  Casaubon's  criticism  on  himself,  but  great  concern 
for  his  salvation.     ® '  He  would  be  pleased  to  receive 

'  Ep.  175:  'Contigit  mihi  dum  Lugduni  otiosus  agerem  tuum  opus  cum 
Baronii  annalibus  nondum  mihi  tum  visis,  posse  contendere.' 

^  Burney  mss.  363.  ap.  Russell,  i.  32  :  'Cum  tantopere  orthodoxi  hominis 
scripta  commendas,  plane  pultare  te  ecclesiae  catholicae  januam  satis  intelligo.' 

^  Dr.  Donne,  however,  Letter  to  sir  H.  G.  p.  33,  writes  :  '  I  have  known  that 
Serarius  the  Jesuit  was  an  instrument  from  cardinal  Baronius  to  draw  him 
(Hugh  Broughton)  to  Rome,  to  accept  a  stipend  only  to  serve  the  christian 
churches  in  controversies  with  the  jews.' 

'  Ep.  338,  also  in  Baronius,  Epistolse,  ep.  165. 

'  Burney  mss.  363.  ap.  Russell,  i.  115. 

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v.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  319 

the  book,  but  much  more  so  to  hear  that  the  announce- 
ment, so  often  made,  of  his  conversion,  was  true.'  This 
was  a  kind  of  correspondence  which  it  did  not  pay 
Casaubon  to  maintain,  and  he  let  it  drop.  He  is  now 
in  possession  of  a  copy  of  the  '  Annales,'  and  his  respect 
for  the  compiler's  learning  is  rapidly  vanishing.  He 
is  irritated  by  the  vogue  of  a  book  so  uncritical  and 
unscholarlike,  and  proposes  to  review  it,  philologically 
only — not  otherwise.  Even  a  philological  review  of  a 
roman  book  is  impossible  in  France,  in  face  of  the 
reaction,  and  Casaubon  turns  to  Polybius  since  he  could 
do  no  better.  When  then,  in  1612,  he  undertakes  a 
review  of  the  '  Annates,'  he  is  but  reviving  an  old  pro- 
ject, for  which  he  had  already  got  together  materials. 
Baronius  meanwhile  had  profited  by  the  correspondence 
of  1603,  for  in  his  next  edition  he  adopted  every  one  of 
the  corrections  Casaubon  had  made,  but  without  acknow- 
ledgment. 


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APPENDIX  TO   SECTION  V. 

Note  A.  p.  282. 

All  the  biographies  of  Casaubon  endow  him  with  a  prebend 
of  Westminster.     In  doing  this  they  have  followed  each  other 
without   enquiry.      The  first  who   mentions   the  Westminster 
prebend  is  Almeloveen,  in  his  Casauboni  vita,  p.  54,  prefixed 
to  his  edition  of  Casauboni  epistol^,  Rot.  1709.     And  Almelo- 
veen relied  upon  the  Ephemerides,  in  which  Casaubon  made 
the    following    entry,    '  18    kal.    Jan.    1610 :    Literas    episcopi 
Bathoniensis  ad  me  scriptas  accepi,  jussu  regis  scriptas.     Deus 
bone,   quam  laetas !    quibus  mihi   rex  suam   singularem   bene- 
volentiam  patefacit  et  rebus  meis  consulit.     Duas  prsebendas 
assignat,   Cantuariae  unam,  alteram  Westmonasterii,   quae  for- 
tasse   ad   duo   millia   librarum   annul   reditus  accedunt.'     The 
original   letter   of  Montagu   is   not   preserved,    but   Casaubon 
appears  to  be  quoting  its  words.     All  that  the  words  warrant 
is  that  two  prebends  were  designed  for  him.     He  was  actually 
put  in  possession  of  the  Canterbury  stall,  but  never  of  the  stall 
at  Westminster.     And  as  there  is  no  further  mention  of  West- 
minster, the  intention  must  have  been  dropped.      Almeloveen 
is    very    careful,    and,    writing    in    Holland,    may    readily   be 
excused  for  having  taken  this  distinct   promise  for  sufficient 
proof  of  the  fact.     The  error  was  corrected  by  Beloe,  Anecdotes 
of  literature,  5.  126 ;  but  the  correction  remained  unheeded  by 
all  the  biographers  and  church  historians  since  Almeloveen, 
except  the  painstaking  and  accurate  Hallam,  Hist,  of  lit.  2.  274. 
[Garasse,  in  his  'Elixir  Calvinisticum '  (1614)  p.  19,  assumes 
Casaubon  to  have  held  some  sort  of  appointment  at  Westminster ; 
'  quid   in  Westmonasterio    Londinensi,   quid   Cantuariae   aliud 
quserat  quam  lautum  beneficium '  ?] 

The  dean  of  Westminster  has  had  the  books  of  the  chapter 
examined  for  me,  and  no  trace  of  Casaubon  as  prebendary  is 
found  in  them. 

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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.    V.  3^1 


Note  B.  p.  285. 

Casaubon's  account  of  his  intercourse  with  James  i.  is  so 
favourable  to  the  king,  that  it  may  be  thought  overcharged  by 
those  who  have  accustomed  themselves  to  think  meanly  of  that 
prince.  Those  whose  impressions  of  character  have  been 
chiefly  derived  from  modern  histories  will  find,  that,  as  they 
become  better  acquainted  with  the  contemporary  memoirs, 
their  estimate  of  James'  abilities  will  be  raised.  Casaubon's 
language  to  James  is  adulatory.  But  then  such  was  the  style 
of  the  english  court,  and  had  been  to  Elisabeth,  whose  vigorous 
understanding  is  not  questioned.  And  even  when  the  king  is 
spoken  of,  there  doubtless  mingles  in  the  panegyric  something 
of  the  feeling  '  Wonderful  for  a  king ! '  At  any  rate,  what 
Casaubon  has  said  of  James'  parts  and  acquirements,  does  not 
go  beyond  what  was  said  of  him  by  the  two  Englishmen  most 
competent  to  judge.  Bacon  and  Selden.  As  illustrating  Casau- 
bon's high  estimate,  I  quote  a  passage  from  Selden,  0pp.  3. 
1400:  'He  (the  king)  then  also  most  graciously  vouchsafed 
to  have  speech  with  me,  as  the  time  permitted,  of  divers  parts 
of  learning  which  either  offered  themselves  out  of  the  consider- 
ation of  that  book,  or  obviously  fell  into  his  so  searching  a 
discourse,  and  this,  twice  at  Theobald's  and  once  at  Whitehall ; 
and  at  every  of  those  times,  besides  the  exceeding  sweetness  of 
this  nature,  which  I,  being  convented  before  so  great  a  majesty, 
largely  tasted  of,  Lsaw,  with  wonder,  the  characters  of  such  a 
fraught  of  learning,  of  such  a  readiness  of  memory,  of  such 
a  piercing  fancy  joined  with  so  absolute  a  judgment  in  him, 
as  if  his  greatness  in  all  these  abilities  had  been  no  less  than  in 
his  hereditary  titles.'  Add  George  Herbert  ap.  Cooper,  Annals 
of  Cambridge,  3.  125. 


Y 

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VI. 

CASAUBON  ON  BARON  I  US. 

The  german  reformation  is  imperfectly  described,  when 
it  is  considered  as  an  appeal  to  scripture  versus  tradition. 
It  was  rather  an  appeal  to  history.  The  discovery  had 
been  made  that  the  church,  as  it  existed,  was  an  institution 
which  no  longer  corresponded  to  its  original,  that  it  was  a 
corrupted,  degraded,  perverted  institution.  The  appeal  to 
scripture  was  not  itself  the  moving  spring  of  the  reforma- 
tion, it  was  the  consequence  of  the  sense  of  decay  and 
degeneracy.  As  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man  was  the 
key  of  human,  so  the  doctrine  of  the  corruption  of  the 
church  was  the  key  of  ecclesiastical,  history.  The  refor- 
mation appealed  to  the  bible,  because  in  this  the  earliest 
record  of  the  church,  it  had  a  measure  of  the  deviation 
from  type  which  had  been  brought  about.  This  corrup- 
tion was  not  the  mere  rust  of  age  which  gathers  about  all 
merely  human  institutions.  The  church  was  the  work  of 
God,  and  time  alone  would  not  have  marred  and  scarred 
its  divine  lineaments.  Its  degradation  was  the  work  of  a 
special  principle  of  evil,  the  mystery  of  iniquity,  the  visible 
embodiment  of  which  was  now  enthroned  on  the  seven 
hills. 

This  thesis  was  worked  out  by  the  '  Magdeburg  cen- 
turies.' In  this  protestant  delineation,  the  church  starts 
in  the  apostolic  age  in  perfect  purity,  and  is  perverted  by 
a  process  of  slow  canker,  till  it  has  become  changed  into 
its  opposite,  and  is  now  the  church  not  of  Christ,  but  of 
anti-christ,  an  instrument  not  for  saving  men  but  for 
destroying  them. 

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ON  BARONIUS. 


323 


The  '  Centuries '  had  not  any  great  success  as  a  pubH- 
cation.  The  strictly  lutheran  public  was  not  numerous, 
and  not  rich.  It  was  not  a  book-buying  public.  But 
though  the  thirteen  folios  of  the  Centuries,  1559-1574, 
had  no  extensive  circulation,  the  historical  thesis  of 
which  they  were  the  laborious  evidence  made  a  deep 
impression.  At  Rome,  the  centre  of  Europe,  where, 
almost  alone,  a  general  view  of  the  current  of  public 
opinion  was  attainable,  it  was  felt  that  an  answer,  or 
antidote,  was  urgently  required.  It  was  provided  with 
an  eclat,  and  upon  a  scale,  which  extinguished  the 
centuriators. 

S.  Philip  Neri,  the  founder  of  the  oratory,  cast  his  eyes 
upon  a  young  Neapolitan,  who  was  burning  with  the 
fervour,  epidemic  at  the  period  (end  of  cent.  16),  of  de- 
votion to  the  cause  of  the  church.  From  preaching  and 
hearing  confessions,  in  which  the  ardent  youth  was  con- 
suming his  energy,  the  father  took  him  to  give  lessons 
on  church  history  in  the  oratory  of  S.  Jerome,  at  Rome^, 
Beginning  as  sermons  for  the  edification  of  the  congre- 
gation in  that  church,  these  deliveries  grew  into  lectures. 
The  lectures  arranged  themselves  in  a  course,  which  in 
thirty  years,  the  lecturer  Cesare  Baronio  (f  1607)  repeated 
seven  times.  As  he  went  on,  his  studies  in  preparing  his 
lectures  became  more  and  more  searching  and  extended. 
His  director  gradually  led  him  on,  till  he  found  himself 
insensibly  engaged  in  the  production  of  his  vast  work,  the 
'Annales  ecclesiastici.'  The  duration  of  Baronius'  labour 
was  that  of  his  life.  He  began  his  popular  readings  in 
the  oratory  aet.  21,  he  died  set.  69,  while  engaged  on  his 
thirteenth  volume.  He  had  waited  till  he  was  forty-nine 
before  he  began  to  pubhsh.  Perhaps  no  modern  historian, 
not  Gibbon  or  Grote,  ever  devoted  the  whole  of  a  life  so 

'  Baronius  has  given  his  own  account  of  this  origin  of  his  work  in  the 
'Annales'  themselves,  under  a.d.  57,  §  162,  With  characteristic  modesty,  he 
does  not  name  himself. 

Y  2 

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334  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

entirely  to  one  historical  work,  or  made  such  a  noviciate. 
The  author  must  have  succumbed  under  the  magnitude 
of  an  undertaking  too  vast  for  a  single  workman,  had  he 
not  had  support  from  without.  As  long  as  S.  Philip  Neri 
lived  he  kept  his  disciple  to  his  work,  urging,  stimulating, 
commanding,  as  if  he  had  to  exact  from  him  a  day's  task- 
work^. The  virgin  and  the  saints,  especially  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul,  gave  him  special  aid,  and  the  Almighty  blessed 
him  with  unbroken  health  to  his  dying  day.  Without 
these  helps  he  could  not  have  supported  the  continued 
labour  of  reading  and  extracting.  Baronius,  like  Bellar- 
mine,  employed  no  amanuensis.  His  notes,  and  extracts 
even,  were  all  made  by  his  own  hand ;  in  this  unlike  the 
centuriators,  who  worked  with  a  subordinate  staff  of  ten 
paid  clerks. 

In  other  respects,  the  unsuccoured  and  thankless  toil 
of  the  centuriators  offers,  to  the  cherished  and  petted 
lot  of  Baronius,  as  great  a  contrast  as  the  bleak  and 
sandy  wastes  of  Mecklenburg  to  the  sunny  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  The  archives  of  the  Vatican,  and  all  the 
resources  of  the  Italian  libraries,  were  thrown  open  to  him. 
The  papal  press  printed  for  him ;  the  wealth  of  the  church 
defrayed  his  charges;  its  highest  dignities  rewarded  his 
success.  Commenced  as  edifying  homilies  to  an  ignorant 
Roman  congregation  by  a  young  priest  little  less  ignorant 
than  themselves,  the  work,  as  it  grew  in  size,  grew  into  a 
reputation  for  learning,  little  short  of  supernatural.  Its 
circulation,  for  its  bulk,  twelve  folios,  one  for  each  century, 
was  unprecedented  then,  and  without  example  since.  The 
libraries  of  all  the  monasteries,  of  the  cathedral  chapters, 
of  the  Jesuit  colleges  and  houses,  the  princes  and  prelates, 
throughout  the  catholic  world,  took  off  edition  after  edition. 
Vol.  I  of  the  '  Annales '  saw  the  light,  '  Romae  ex  typo- 
graphia  Vaticana  1588,'  and  Clement  enumerates  five  com- 

'  Atberici,  Vita  Baronii,  p.  30  :  '  Durus  quodammodo  diurni  pensi  exactor.' 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  325 

plete  editions  before  1610.  The  volumes  were  dedicated 
to  none  below  popes,  emperors,  and  kings,  the  author 
condescending  to  bestow  one  at  last  on  Henri  iv.  after 
he  had  qualified  himself  to  receive  this  certificate  of 
orthodoxy.  The  book  was  translated,  commented,  sup- 
plemented, continued  till,  not  its  faults,  but  its  very  com- 
pleteness, arrested  its  circulation.  In  the  great  Lucca 
edition  1738-1787,  it  had  grown  to  thirty-eight  vols,  foho, 
and  thus  purchase  was  made  difficult,  and  perusal  im- 
possible. And  it  was  finally  supplanted  by  the  elegant 
compendium  of  Fleury,  which  gave  its  contents  to  the 
world  ^  in  the  universal  language  of  literature. 

At  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  relative 
position  of  the  two  religious  parties  was  reversed.  The 
catholic  party  had  recovered,  and  more  than  recovered, 
their  ascendancy  in  the  west  of  Europe.  It  was  a  moral 
ascendancy  over  opinion  of  which  they  now  found  them- 
selves possessed,  an  ascendancy  founded  on  superiority 
of  numbers  and  wealth,  but  intensified  by  religious  zeal. 
They  were  fast  making  way  to  intellectual  preponderance. 
At  this  moment  appeared  Baronius'  '  Annals.'  A  work  of 
such  vast  compass,  dealing  with  an  important  theme, 
would  have  been,  at  any  time,  a  considerable  phenomenon 
in  the  literary  world.  Appearing  at  the  moment  it  did,  it 
had  the  significance  not  of  a  mere  literary  publication,  but 
of  a  political  event.  The  '  Centuries '  had  shown  the 
history  of  the  church  as  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  evil 
waxing  through  successive  ages,  till  it  was  consummated 
in  the  reign  of  anti-chrlst.  Baronius  exhibited  the  visible 
unity  and  impeccable  purity  of  the  church  founded  upon 
Peter,  and  handed  down  inviolate,  such  at  this  day  as  it 
had  ever  been.  The  whole  case  of  the  romanists,  and 
especially  the  supremacy  of  the  see  of  Rome,  was  here 


'  Fleury,  Hist,  eccles.  hv.  75.  i  .  '  Ici  [1198]  finissent  les  annales  du  cardinal 
Baronius,  que  j'ai  principalement  eu  pour  guide  dans  cette  histoire.' 


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326  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

set  out,  under  the  form  of  authentic  annals  \  with  an  im- 
posing array  of  pieces  justificatives,  of  original  documents 
which  were  inaccessible  to  the  protestant  centuriators, 
and  extinguished  their  meagre  citations  from  familiar  and 
printed  books.  The  unsupported  theory  of  the  protestant 
history  is  refuted  by  the  mere  weight  of  facts.  When  we 
read  as  an  event  of  a.  d.  44  that  in  this  year  Peter  trans- 
ferred his  episcopal  chair  from  Antioch,  where  he  had 
been  seven  years  bishop,  to  Rome,  where  he  continued 
for  five-and-twenty  years  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the 
church,  we  are  reading  a  bare  fact  as  well  known  at  Rome 
as  the  transactions  of  the  year  1544.  The  protestants  saw 
their  historical  pleadings,  not  answered,  but  eclipsed.  They 
had  been  the  aggressive  party ;  they  were  now  put  out  of 
court.  The  '  Annals '  transferred  to  the  catholic  party  the 
preponderance  in  the  field  of  learning,  which  ever  since 
Erasmus  had  been  on  the  side  of  the  innovators.  It  was 
the  turn  of  the  protestants  to  feel  the  urgent  need  of  an 
antidote  to  Baronius. 

Exterminated  in  southern  Europe,  ground  to  the  dust 
in  France,  threatened  with  violence  in  Germany,  it  was 
only  in  Holland  or  Britain  that  the  protestant  party  had 
strength  or  heart  for  any  literary  undertaking.  But 
neither  in  Holland  nor  Britain  were  there  the  resources 
for  a  history  on  the  scale  of  Baronius.  And  there  was 
only  one  man  who  possessed  the  knowledge  requisite; 
he  was  some  way  past  fifty,  and  exhausted  by  a  life  of 
desk-work.  Yet  Casaubon  resolutely  girded  himself  for 
the  fray.  The  idea  was  not  new  to  him;  he  had  long 
contemplated  the  plan  of  an  answer  to  Baronius  in  the 
only  shape  in  which  it  was  possible. 

At  his  age  a  rival  church  history  was  not  to  be  thought 

'  Baronius  states,  Annal.  eccles.  pr^f.,  his  own  purpose  to  be  '  catholicse 
ecclesiae  visibilem  raonarchiam  a  Christo  domino  institutam,  super  Petrum  fund- 
atam,  ac  per  ejus  legitimes  verosque  successores,  Romanos  nimirum  pontifices, 
inviolate  conservatam  .  .  .  per  singula  tempora  demonstrare.' 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  327 

of.  Nor  is  it  clear  that  if  such  a  history  had  been  written 
it  would  have  commanded  much  attention,  much  less 
that  it  would  have  driven  the  'Annals'  out  of  the  field. 
What  had  the  protestants  to  set  against  the  mysterious 
'archives'  of  the  Vatican,  whose  records  had  been  kept 
by  seven  notaries  ever  since  the  days  of  S.  Clement  ?  It 
is  true  the  oldest  documents  were  not  forthcoming; 
they  had,  perhaps,  been  destroyed  in  Diocletian's  persecu- 
tion. But  no  matter.  All  that  was  important  in  them  was 
well  known;  it  was  an  office  tradition;  a  fact  whose 
notoriety  dispensed  with  proof 

Besides,  the  success  of  Baronius  had  been  due  to  his 
having  met  a  popular  demand.  There  are  periods  when 
destructive  criticism  is  the  vogue,  and  only  he  who  speaks 
against  the  established  beliefs  can  obtain  a  hearing. 
Such  a  period  had  been  the  first  half  of  the  i6th  century. 
Another  access  of  the  same  temper  was  to  occur  again  in 
the  i8th  century.  But,  about  1600,  what  the  religious 
public  wanted  was  a  conservative  reconstruction  of  the 
ecclesiastical  legend.  An  uneasy  feeling  had  been  dif- 
fused by  the  reformation,  which  troubled  pious  souls, 
as  if  the  hagiological  tradition  contained  a  fabulous 
element.  It  was  poison,  this  sceptical  suspicion,  for  how 
could  the  fabulous  have  got  in,  unless  it  had  been  wilfully 
put  there  ? 

The  history  of  the  catholic  church  had  long  ceased  to 
be  regarded  as  history.  It  was  an  edifying  story,  in 
which  the  devotional  effect,  and  not  the  matter-of-fact, 
was  the  object  of  the  narrator.  The  hagiographer  had  no 
idea  of  imposture,  of  palming  off  as  true  that  which  he 
knew  was  not  true.  The  plenitude  of  his  faith  in  the 
church  supported  anything  which  was,  or  could  be,  told 
to  the  honour  of  the  servants  of  Christ.  It  was  not  mere 
scepticism,  it  was  an  entirely  new  view  of  the  church, 
when  the  protestant  critic  began  to  regard  the  church 
as  an  institution  in  time  and  place,  and  to  ask  if  this  or 

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3a8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

that  alleged  event  was  a  real  event — had  actually  hap- 
pened. 

This  desire  to  believe,  this  pious  v^^ish  to  have  the 
legend  authenticated,  was  what  Baronius  met  and  satis- 
fied. He  gives  the  substance  of  historical  evidence  to  the 
supernatural  chronicle  of  the  early  and  middle  age  church. 
The  surprising  vogue  of  his  history  was  due  to  its  want 
of  true  historical  criticism.  His  pages  embody,  and  sanc- 
tion, with  a  vast  apparatus  of  quotation,  all  the  romantic 
legends  so  dear  to  the  faithful  but  uneducated  catholic. 
And  while  he  preserved  round  the  church  story  that 
picturesque  haze  which  faith  cherished  and  which  his- 
torical science  would  dissipate,  he  satisfied  the  require- 
ments of  the  political  churchman  by  turning  the  annals 
of  the  church  into  one  long  proof  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
roman  pontiff. 

A  protestant  history,  which  had  no  saints,  no  miracles, 
could  have  had  no  success.  History  cannot  be  negative, 
it  must  have  something  to  narrate.  All  that  was  pos- 
sible therefore  for  Casaubon  was  criticism.  There  was 
one  side  on  which  Baronius  was  vulnerable,  and  on  that 
side  Casaubon  resolved  on  making  his  attack. 

The  '  Annals '  was  a  work  of  gigantic  labour.  In  the  first 
flush  of  its  early  triumph,  the  imposing  array  of  author- 
ities, the  exhaustive  compilation  of  all  the  passages,  had 
overwhelmed  criticism,  and  it  passed  for  a  work  of  learn- 
ing, not  only  in  catholic  universities,  and  in  Italy,  where 
the  tests  of  learning  had  ceased  to  exist,  but  generally. 
Casaubon  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  impressed 
by  his  first  sight  of  the  earlier  volumes  in  1598.  But  as 
time  was  given  for  examination  of  the  details,  it  began  to 
appear  that  the  champion  of  the  church  was  not  only 
wanting  in  historical  criticism,  but  destitute  of  the  more 
elementary  acquirements  necessary  for  extracting  the 
sense  of  ancient  writers.  Had  the  'Annals'  been  the 
work  of  a  scholar,  it  was  impossible  that  in  so  enormous 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  329 

a  mass  of  facts  there  should  not  have  been  errors.  A 
benedictine  monk  is  said— but  the  authority  ^  is  not  first- 
rate,  for  it  is  that  of  the  professional  gladiator,  Scioppius 
—to  have  found  2000  errors  in  Baronius.  And  Lucas 
Holstenius,  afterwards,  professed  to  have  swelled  the 
number  to  8000  ^.  But  mere  mistakes  are  but  errata  and 
can  be  corrected.  Casaubon  gradually  discovered  that 
Baronius'  errors  were  errors  of  scholarship.  Rather  he 
was  not  in  possession  of  the  elements  of  learning.  He 
knew  no  hebrew,  no  greek  ^  He  was  totally  destitute  of 
the  critical  skill  which  is  implied  in  dealing  with  ancient 
authors,  so  as  to  elicit  their  meaning.  In  fact  this  vast 
historical  edifice,  with  its  grand  front  and  stately  chambers, 
was  a  house  of  cards,  which  a  breath  of  criticism  would 
demolish  in  a  moment. 

If  Casaubon  did  not  detect  the  imposture  at  once  on 
first  looking  into  the  book,  it  must  be  remembered  that  he 
only  had  the  reading  of  a  volume  casually,  and  while  he 
was  engrossed  with  other  subjects.  At  the  very  first 
reading  he  had  felt,  and  had  expressed  to  Scaliger*,  his 
keen  perception  of  the  difference  between  the  real  learning 
of  the  'Thesaurus  Temporum'  and  the  'Annales.'  Be- 
sides, Casaubon  himself  was  in  steady  growth,  and  in  the 
ten  years  which  followed  1598,  raised  his  standard  of 
judging,  and  especially  enlarged  his  knowledge  of  eccle- 
siastical antiquity. 

He  was  at  first  disposed  to  attribute  the  citation  of 
so  much  apocryphal  literature  to  bad  faith  on  the  part 
of  Baronius.  He  could  not  beheve  that  any  one  who  was 
in   the   habit  of  handling  the  remains  of  the  greek  and 

'  Ap.  Colomies,  Bibl.  choisie,  p.  153. 

^  Guy  Patin,  Lettres,  25  ftv.  1660,  to  Falconet. 

^  This  was  well  understood  in  protestant  circles.  See  Cappelli  Vindiciae  pro 
Isaaco  Casaubono,  1619 :  '  Deerat  illi  [Baronio]  sane  linguarum  orientalium 
cognitio,  grsecam  vix  primoribus  labris  delibarat,  disciplinis  mathematicis  im- 
paratus  erat.' 

*  Ep.  175  :  '  Ita  demum  didici  .  .  .  inter  ■^iAa\^9«ai' et  gratiae  aucupium 
interesse  tantum.' 

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330  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

latin  writers,  should  not  know  better.  Here  he  was 
undeceived  by  Fra  Paolo,  to  whom  he  had  communicated 
this  suspicion.  While  speaking  meanly  of  the  work,  the 
father  vindicated  the  character  of  the  author.  'Those 
who  know  the  man,'  he  writes^  to  Casaubon,  'will  not 
easily  be  persuaded  to  think  him  dishonest.  It  is  want  of 
mind,  of  critical  knowledge.  I  knew  him  at  Rome,  before 
he  put  himself  in  the  road  to  preferment,  or  had  got  the 
itch  of  writing,  at  a  time  when  the  cure  of  his  soul  was  his 
only  business.  I  never  knew  a  more  simple  being.  He 
had  no  opinions  of  his  own  ;  he  caught  up  the  opinions  of 
those  he  lived  with,  and  obstinately  maintained  them,  till 
some  new  person  supplied  him  with  a  new  one.  He  was 
without  judgment,  if  you  please ;  but  "  dolus  malus  "  there 
was  none  about  the  man.  I  cannot  think  that  he  is  an 
antagonist  worthy  of  you  ;  and  it  has  always  been  matter 
of  surprise  to  me,  that  his  work  should  have  stood  so  high, 
as  it  has,  in  public  esteem.' 

Further  study  of  the  '  Annals '  convinced  Casaubon  of 
Baronius'  good  faith.  But  it  was  at  the  expense  of  his 
understanding  ^-  The  prestige  of  the  work  had  imposed 
upon  him  at  first.  It  had  seemed  impossible  that  a  his- 
tory, which  all  the  world  was  agreed  to  regard  as  a  learned 
work,  should  not  have  some  title  to  be  so  considered. 
He  was  irritated,  as  a  scholar,  by  the  vogue  of  an  un- 
scholarlike  work.  He  lamented,  as  a  citizen,  the  triumph 
of  the  evil  cause.  He  thought  he  could  not  render  a 
better  service  to  the  church  than  by  exposing  the  spurious 
character  of  the  hterary  idol  of  Rome.  It  was  not  Baro- 
nius he  was  going  to  attack,  but  Italian  erudition,  the 

1  Ep.  8ii. 

^  On  one  occasion  Casaubon  is  compelled  to  admire  the  dexterity  of  Baronius. 
It  is  where  Vigilius,  having  become  pope,  has  to  be  whitewashed.  Adversaria, 
3.  103  :  '  Diligentiaa  plus  semper  tribui  Baronio,  quam  acuminis.  at  cum  video 
qua  dexteritate  concinnet  metamorphosin  Vigilii  .  .  .  non  possum  quin 
exclamem,  si  verum  non  est,  at  est  ingeniose  inventum.' 


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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  33 1 

sham  learning  which  the  old  impostor  was  substituting  for 
the  sham  miracles  of  the  dark  ages. 

This  was  the  spirit  in  which  he  set  about  the  '  Exercita- 
tiones,'  and  had  been  preparing  the  materials  long  before 
he  came  to  England.  If  we  enquire  what  success  Casau- 
bon  had  in  his  enterprise,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  admit 
that  it  was  not  a  decisive  triumph. 

The  form  in  which  he  cast  his  matter  was  unfortunate. 
The  '  Exercitations '  are  a  collection  of  detached  notes  on 
the  '  Annals.'  They  follow  the  order  of  the  '  Annals,'  but 
have  no  other  connection  than  the  chronological  sequence. 
There  is  no  common  thread  of  argument  to  give  unity 
to  the  composition.  Such  miscellaneous  common-place 
books,  as  Hallam^  has  said  of  Turnebus'  'Adversaria,' 
'  can  only  be  read  in  a  desultory  manner,  or  consulted 
upon  occasion.'  But  when  such  notes  are  not  merely 
desultory,  but  in  a  strain  of  censure,  sometimes  descending 
to  mere  fault-finding,  the  reading  becomes  not  only  dis- 
tracting, but  distasteful.  Casaubon  has  sufficient  respect 
for  himself  and  his  adversary  not  to  descend  to  the  black- 
guard scurrilities  of  the  pamphleteers  of  the  day,  but  he  is 
too  often  calling  upon  the  reader  to  wonder  at  the  ignor- 
ance and  fatuity  of  Baronius.  His  criticism  wants  the 
repose  of  immeasurable  superiority,  such  as  characterises 
the  greatest  critics,  e.g.  Lobeck's  Aglaophamus ^,  in  his 
treatment  of  Creuzer. 

This  great  disadvantage  in  point  of  form,  viz.  that  the 
'  Exercitations '  are  a  critique  of  another  book  and  follow 
its  arrangement,  has  obscured  the  credit  which  would 
otherwise  have  followed  the  same  material  if  better  ar- 
ranged. As  it  is,  the  book  has  formed  a  mine  of  re- 
ferences which  have  been  very  useful  to  the  compilers 

'  Lit.  of  Europe,  ±.  482. 

^  Friedlander,  Gedachtnissrede,  p.  u  :  '  Der  Ton  des  Aglaophamus  bewahrt 
im  Ganzen  die  voile  Ruhe  unendlicher  Ueberlegenheit.' 


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332  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

of  '  notes '  on  the  New  Testament  for  the  last  250  years  ^. 
Nor  is  it  all  attack.  There  are  incorporated  in  the  book 
some  dissertations  in  which  Casaubon  comes  forward  to 
instruct  the  reader  directly.  Such  a  portion  are  the 
chapters  on  the  different  names  by  which  the  Eucharist 
was  spoken  of  in  the  early  ages  ^ ;  a  chapter  which  has 
furnished  Waterland^  with  a  great  part  of  his  refer- 
ences in  chapter  i.  of  his  '  Review  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Eucharist.' 

A  desultory  critique,  passage  by  passage,  of  another 
man's  book,  prolonged  through  nearly  800  pages  in  folio, 
does  not  constitute  attractive  reading.  What  would  the 
'  Exercitations '  have  been,  if  Casaubon  had  Hved  to  carry 
out  his  design  ?  He  proposed  to  set  over  against  Baro- 
nius'  twelve  folios,  volume  for  volume  of  his  animad- 
versions*. Of  this  monster  criticism  the  volume  which 
we  have  is  only  the  first  half  of  the  first  volume— a  mere 
fragment ! 

Besides  the  fault  of  their  original  design,  the  '  Exerci- 
tations '  have  a  fault  of  execution. 

There  were  two  points  on  which  Baronius  lay  entirely 
at  Casaubon's  mercy,  i.  His  entire  want  of  greek,  and  of 
classical  learning  of  any  kind.  2.  His  employment  of  the 
apocryphal  literature,  and  production  of  the  roman  fabu- 
lous history,  as  if  it  were  matter-of-fact.  Casaubon  could 
have  assured  his  victory,  however  little  worth  it  might 
have  been,  had  he  confined  himself  to  exposing  the 
blunders  of  one  who  thought  that  the  word  '  missa '  (the 
mass)  was  the  term  in  use  at  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of 
S.  James '^j  or  the  credulity  which  relied  on  the  false 
Decretals,  which  even  Bellarmine  had  given  up.  But 
Casaubon  has  not  confined  himself  to  matters  of  language 

'  See  Crenius,  Animadw.  p.  123,  for  instances  of  unacknowledged  borrowing 
from  Casaubon's  '  Exercitationes. ' 

"  Exercitt.  pp.  500-586,  ed.  Lond.  1614.  '  Works,  vol.  7.  pp.  20-43. 

*  Ep.  782  :  '  Duodecim  tomis  totidem  libros  oppono.' 
^  Exercitt.  p.  582. 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  333 

or  history.  He  has  gone  in  for  theological  controversy, 
thus  forsaking  the  vantage  ground  of  learning,  and  letting 
himself  down  on  that  of  mere  opinion.  When  he  first 
planned  the  work,  he  had  intended,  of  such  matters,  only 
to  touch  what  bore  on  the  regalian  rights^.  He  was 
gradually  led  on  to  other  controverted  points  of  theology. 
Indeed,  he  did  this  sparingly^,  and,  as  the  english  bishops 
thought,  too  sparingly.  Andrewes,  who  looked  over  the 
sheets,  wished  '  he  would  not  spend  so  much  time  on 
mere  questions  of  chronology.'  Casaubon  was  hampered 
by  his  position  as  protestant  champion.  Both  his  public 
and  his  patron  expected  to  see  the  doctrinal  errors  of 
Baronius  refuted.  They  thought  that  Casaubon's  name 
would  carry  the  weight  of  his  authority  in  the  arena  of 
religious  dispute.  His  occasional  descent  into  the  sec- 
tarian controversy  has  only  the  effect  of  lowering  the  tone, 
and  obscuring  the  character,  of  the  whole  work.  Even  as 
a  polemical  success  the  blow  dealt  at  the  papal  historian 
would  have  told  more,  if  Casaubon  had  confined  himself 
to  his  critical  corrections,  which  were  unanswerable,  and 
not  committed  himself  to  disputation  on  mere  matters  of 
opinion. 

Hallam  has  expressed  his  opinion  that  ^ '  in  mere  theo- 
logical learning,  Casaubon  was  behind  some  english 
scholars.'  These  general  comparisons  of  degrees  of 
learning  admit  neither  of  being  proved  nor  refuted.  Of 
Englishmen  living  at  the  same  time  as  Casaubon,  there 
are  but  two  who  could  be  brought  into  competition  with 
him,  Selden  and  Andrewes.  But  Selden  was  only  thirty 
years  old  at  the  date  of  Casaubon's  death,  and  his  re- 
searches had  lain  in  a  field  not  the  same  as  those  of 
Casaubon.     The    comparison  with    Andrewes    is    more 

1  Prolegomena  in  Exercitt. :   '  Ilia  solummodo  attingere  consilium  erat,  quae 
ad  jura  principum  pertinent.' 

^  Ep.  79s  :  '  Mere  theologica  parce  attingo.' 
=  Lit.  of  Europe,  13.  311. 

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334  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

possible.  Casaubon  himself  said  of  Andrewes  ^  '  that  he 
was  deeply  versed  in  the  fathers,'  and  he  was  certainly 
a  man  of  much  greater  originality  of  mind  than  Isaac 
Casaubon.  Yet  Andrewes  could  no  more  have  written 
the  '  Exercitations,'  than  Casaubon  could  have  composed 
one  of  Andrewes'  witty  sermons.  From  the  brilhant  cut, 
thrust,  and  parry  of  Andrewes'  pamphlet  fencing,  Casau- 
bon's  dull  matter-of-fact  style  is  far  removed  ;  but  from 
a  single  one  of  the  '  Exercitations '  there  is  more  to  be 
learned  than  from  the  whole  volume  of  the  '  Tortura 
Torti.' 

The  material  facts  of  the  primitive  history  of  the  christian 
church  lie  in  small  compass,  and  are  in  Baronius  and 
Casaubon  alike.  The  difference  here  is  not  in  extent  of 
reading,  but  in  the  power  of  using  the  facts.  Casaubon 
possesses  them  as  knowledge,  and  can  reason  upon  them 
for  chronological  and  philological  purposes.  Baronius 
amasses  them  as  a  compiler;  when  he  attempts  to  reason 
upon  them,  he  falls  into  ludicrous  misconceptions,  and  yet 
misconceptions  not  of  a  nature  which  admits  of  being 
made  very  palpable  to  the  general  reader.  Where  Casau- 
bon had  the  greatest  opportunity,  and  where  he  has  not 
used  it,  is  in  the  legendary  character  of  Baronius'  whole 
construction.  Baronius  has  swept  into  his  repertory 
everything  that  could  be  found,  true  or  false,  probable  or 
absurd.  The  anile  fables,  and  apocryphal  legends,  which 
had  accumulated  round  the  scanty  nucleus  of  the  early 
christian  story,  are  consecrated  in  the  '  Annals '  as  serious 
portions  of  church  history.  He  makes,  indeed,  some 
faint  effort  to  discriminate.  Though  he  inserts  everything, 
yet  he  sometimes  expresses  a  doubt  of  his  apocryphal 
narratives,  e.  g.  ^  of  the  dialogue  between  S.  Paul  and 
Dionysius    the  Areopagite    at  Athens.     He   rejects   the 

'  Adversaria,  28.  4  :   '  Soleo  observare  singula  dicta  viri  sapientissimi,  et  in" 
patrum  lectione  exercitatissimi,  D.  episcopi  Eliensis.' 
^  Annales  eccles.  52.  10. 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  335 

Constantine  endowment,  but  it  is  on  the  a  priori  ground 
that  it  would  be  unworthy  of  the  church  to  have  accepted, 
as  a  gift  from  the  emperor,  what  it  already  held  'jure 
divino.'  This  modest. beginning  of  criticism,  like  that  of 
Bochari,  who  would  reduce  the  600,000  traditions  of  Islam 
to  70,000  ^,  was  unacceptable  to  the  high  party.  Baronius 
is  severely  taken  to  task  for  his  doubts  by  the  Spanish 
Jesuit,  a  Castro,  and  the  dominican,  John  de  la  Puente. 
Baronius  is  too  sceptical  for  the  Spanish  taste.  The  fact 
that  Casaubon  has  not  used  his  advantage  in  this  respect 
betrays  his  own  limitation  as  a  historical  critic.  He  con- 
stantly notices  Baronius'  recourse  to  apocryphal  autho- 
rities, but  it  was  not  in  him  to  take  his  stand  on  the  broad 
principle  of  historical  investigation,  and  to  require  that 
church  history  should  be  subjected  to  the  same  rigid 
scrutiny  as  all  history.  If  he  expresses  a  doubt  of^ 
Hydaspes,  Hermes,  and  the  Sibylline  oracles,  it  is  not  on 
critical  grounds,  but  on  the  a  priori  improbability  that 
God  would  have  allowed  the  Gentiles  to  have  had  fuller 
prevision  of  the  gospel  revelation  than  was  granted  to  the 
Jews.  The  genuineness  of  the  epistles  of  Ignatius  he  is 
ready  to  establish  ^  by  new  arguments.  He  knows  the 
late  date  of  the  * '  Areopagitica,'  but  then  here  he  had 
Valla,  Erasmus,  and  Scaliger  to  enlighten  him.  Epipha- 
nius  ''is  far  too  ready  to  give  credence  to  trifling  fables,' 
and  the  fathers  generally,  both  greek  and  latin,  often 
blunder  in  matters  of  history  ^.  But  these  same  fathers, 
in  matters  of  doctrine,  become  authorities ;  they  are  ap- 
pealed to  by  Casaubon  as  judges  in  the  last  instance. 
The  appeal  indeed  is  not  to  the  individual  father,  but  to 
him  as  representing  the  behef  of  the  church  of  his  time. 
As   an  argumentum  ad  hominem  against  Baronius,  who 

'  [4000  ;  see  note  in  Smith's  edition  of  Gibbon,  vol.  vi.  p.  229.] 
"  Exercitt.  i.  10.  *  Exercitt.  16.  150. 

*  Ibid.  16.  43.  p.  565.  '  Ibid.  15.  7. 

«  Exercitt.  i.  2 :    'In  liistoria,  et  in  iis,  quae  fidei  non  sunt,  graviter  hal- 
lucinari.' 

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336  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

maintained  that  the  church  had  never  varied  in  doctrine 
or  belief,  and  had  been  throughout  what  it  now  was,  this 
appeal  was  admissible  as  a  controversial  expedient.  But 
Casaubon  goes  much  beyond  this,  and  thinks  that  in 
ascertaining  the  opinions  of  a  father  he  is  not  merely 
learning  the  opinion  of  a  given  period  of  the  church,  but 
obtaining  truth  valid  for  all  ages.  Baronius'  '  Annals '  was 
a  lengthy  pleading,  a  pamphlet  in  twelve  volumes  folio,  in 
support  of  the  authority  of  the  existing  church.  Casau- 
bon's  '  Exercitations  '  is  among  the  earliest  of  the  array  of 
anglo-catholic  attempts  to  set  up  the  authority  of  'Anti- 
quity '  as  the  canon  of  religious  truth. 

If  the  fathers  are,  to  this  extent,  placed  above  the 
application  of  historical  interpretation,  much  more  are  the 
canonical  books.  In  his  notes  on  the  N.  T.  (1587)  Isaac 
Casaubon  had  shown  a  disposition  to  follow  the  true  path 
of  philological  interpretation.  Taking  given  words,  what 
does  the  language  require  that  they  should  mean  ?  This 
principle  of  exegesis  was  not  so  difficult  of  application 
while,  as  an  annotator,  he  was  dealing  with  each  passage 
singly.  Now,  when  he  has  to  consider  the  collective 
effect  of  a  number  of  collated  passages,  he  allows  it  to  be 
overridden  by  the  theological  principle,  the  so-called 
'harmonia  dictorum  biblicorum.'  Statements  in  the 
gospels  must  be  reconciled  'per  fas  atque  nefas.'  Many 
pages  e.  g.  are  wasted  over  the  discrepancy  as  to  the  day 
on  which  the  Passover  was  eaten.  Baronius  defends  the 
common  view  which  makes  the  fourth  gospel  conform  to 
the  synoptics ;  Casaubon  the  opposite,  which  squares  the 
synoptics  by  S.  John.  But  Casaubon,  equally  with  Ba- 
ronius, assumes  that  it  would  be  '  blasphemous '  to  suppose 
discrepancy  in  point  of  fact  ^. 

It    is    creditable    to   Casaubon    that,    in    a    period    of 

'  Exercitt.  p.  466 :  '  Mira  res  et  vix  credenda  de  hominibus  qui  did  se 
christianos  et  haberi  postularent  ...  (to  say  that)  Matthseum,  Marcum,  Lucam 
in  temporis  circumstantia  lapses,  ab  Johanna  esse  correctos.' 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  337 

theological  excitation,  when  religious  passion  was  daily 
translating  itself  into  overt  acts  of  violence,  he  treats  his 
opponent,  if  not  with  courtesy,  at  least  with  respect.  Yet 
his  anger  is  occasionally  roused  by  Baronius'  blundering 
misconstruction  of  everything  he  touches ;  and  when  he 
has  occasion  to  speak  of  the  fry  of  pamphleteers,  he  is  not 
seldom  savage  1,  and  sinks  into  the  tone  of  the  railing 
divine.  But  though  he  observes  the  forms  of  civility 
which  the  cardinal's  public  position  and  private  character 
imposed,  it  is  clear  that  Casaubon's  respect  for  his  op- 
ponent diminished,  instead  of  increased,  as  he  subjected 
his  work  to  closer  examination.  He  came  to  recognise 
that  the  demolition  of  Baronius  was  scarcely  a  work  of 
criticism  at  all,  and  that  Fra  Paolo  had  been  right  in 
telling  him  that  Baronius  was  not  an  antagonist  worthy 
of  him.  In  March  1612,  he  writes  to  Grotius^,  'I  begin 
to  realise  the  magnitude  of  the  task  I  have  undertaken, 
now  when  it  is  impossible  to  back  out  of  it.  Not  that  I 
have  much  trouble  in  confuting  Baronius'  sing-song, 
mostly  childish  stuff,  the  man  himself  without  learning, 
letters,  or  theology.  What  costs  me  most  effort  is  the 
extra  work  I  have  imposed  on  myself,  viz.  to  set  out, 
under  each  head  of  controversy,  what  was  the  belief  of 
antiquity.* 

The  dissemination  and  permanence  of  books  depends 
on  many  various  causes.  Criticism  goes  for  very  little; 
'habent  sua  fata.'  'Les  classes  influentes  ne  sont  plus 
celles  qui  lisent,'  writes  de  Tocqueville  ^ ;  'un  livre, 
quelque  soit  son  succes,  n'ebranle  done  point  I'esprit 
public'  It  would  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  reputation 
of  Baronius  was  sensibly  affected  by  Casaubon's  review. 
The  'Annals'  sank  under  their  own   defects,  and  the 


'  See  Exercitt.  p.  513. 

^  Ep.  779 :    '  Neque  in  confutandis  nseniis  Baronianis  magnus  mihi  labor ; 
pueriles  saepe  sunt;  ipse  indoctus,  cifiovffos,  a9eo\6y!)TOS.' 
'  Corresp.  29  juillet,  1856. 

Z 

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338  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

change  in  public  taste.  The  hagiological  temper  in  the 
reading  parts  of  Europe,  which  had  enjoyed  a  forced 
reviviscence  during  the  cathohc  reaction,  could  not  main- 
tain itself  Baronius  was  entertaining  reading.  As  such 
Scahger  had  read  the  first  eight  volumes  in  one  summer^; 
a  feat,  even  of  eyesight,  for  a  man  over  sixty  ^,  and  occu- 
pied in  his  working  hours  with  a  laborious  undertaking  of 
his  own.  In  this  respect  the  competition  of  the  secular 
romance,  which  came  in  in  the  17th  century,  tended  to 
throw  hagiography  into  the  shade.  But  the  decline  of 
Baronius'  reputation  for  learning,  which,  we  learn  from 
Lestoile  ^,  began  before  Casaubon  wrote,  injured  it  more. 

Because  the  '  Annals '  did  not  sink  out  of  sight  at  the 
touch  of  the  enchanter's  wand,  the  '  Exercitations '  were 
proclaimed  a  failure  by  exulting  enemies  and  disappointed 
friends.  The  Savile  set  were  happy  to  think  that  Casau- 
bon could  not  do  what  he  had  prevented  them  from  doing*. 
Richard  Montagu  laments^  that  the  very  learned  Isaac 
Casaubon  was  not  a  theologian ;  that  he  followed  Scaliger 
even  in  his  paradoxes;  that  he  made  much  of  trifles — 
critica  titivillitia ;  that  he  spent  all  his  labour  on  the 
volume  of  the  gospel  history,  and  not  on  the  later  periods ; 
that  he  allows  himself  irrelevant  digressions.  These 
were  things  that  could  be  said  at  the  time  by  the  envious 
'friends.'  He  did  not  please  his  immediate  patrons,  the 
bishops,  who  wished  now  that  Casaubon  had  handled 
Baronius  a  little  more  roughly^.  Like  their  successors 
in  the  i8th  century,  who  regretted  Butler's  'want  of 
vigour','  they  had  no  means  of  knowing  which  was  in 

•  Scaligerana  2°.  p.  24  :  '  Tota  sestate  octo  ejus  volumina  legi.' 

*  Vol.  8  of  the  '  Annates '  came  out  in  1600. 

'  Registre-journal,  16  Jan.  1607  :  '  Baronius  depuis  un  peu  a  perdu  beaucoup 
de  sa  reputation.'  *  See  below,  p.  375. 

°  Apparatus  ad  Origines  eccles.  praef.  §  65  seq.,  and  app.  p.  136. 

'  Colomies,  Bibl.  choisie,  p.  151  :  '  Les  eveques  auroient  souhaite  que 
Casaubon  eut  traits  Baronius  un  peu  plus  rudement  qu'il  ne  faisoit,  a  quoi  sa 
candeur  et  sa  modestie  ne  pflrent  jamais  consentir.' 

'  Byrom's  Journal,  March,  1737. 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIVS.  339 

the  right,  and  thought  want  of  passion  a  sign  of  weakness. 
The  puritan  party  wished  to  see  Baronius  well  abused, 
and  charged  with  disaffection  the  man  who  would  not 
stoop  to  do  it^  To  take  up  what  Casaubon  left  un- 
achieved, has  been  a  favourite  project  with  the  protestant 
party.  Richard  Montagu  went  over  the  same  ground 
again,  to  show  how  Casaubon  ought  to  have  done  it, 
but  could  not,  in  his  'Analecta  exercitationum  ecclesi- 
asticarum.'  Gerard  John  Voss  had  written,  and  was 
encouraged  by  Laud,  then  bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  to 
publish  something,  which  never  appeared,  of  the  kind^. 
Nor  is  anything  more  known  of  the  work  of  Jacques 
Godefroy,  which  he  offered  to,  and  which  was  approved 
by,  the  synod  of  Charenton  in  1631  ^.  Blondel,  Magendie, 
Flottemanville,  published  critical  remarks  or  corrections 
of  Baronius  *. 

Such  was  the  opinion  of  contemporaries.  As  for  the 
judgment  of  posterity,  there  is  none  worth  mentioning 
to  record.  The  'mot'  on  the  catholic  side,  'that  Cas- 
aubon had  only  knocked  down  a  few  battlements  of 
Baronius'  building,'  is  worth  as  little  as  that  which 
Almeloveen^  opposes  to  it,  'that  if  he  did  not  kill 
Baronius,  he  inflicted  deep  wounds.'  The  last  professed 
criticism  is  that  of  Leclerc,  written  in  the  year  1709*.  He 
says  that  Casaubon,  'in  undertaking  to  refute  Baronius, 
had  undertaken  a  work  above  his  strength,  i.  He  had 
not  sufficiently  meditated  the  first  principles  of  theology. 
2.  He  had  not  sufficient  knowledge  of  chronology.    3.  He 

'  Montac.  app.  prsef.  §  75  :  '  Ut  contumeliis  incesserem  et  opprobriis,  quod 
nostri  vellent,  et  non  factum  accusantur  (sic).' 

'  Laud  to  Voss.  ap.  Colomife,  p.  153 ;  and  see  Yossii  Epistolae,  2.  p.  66. 

^  Quick,  Synodicon,  a.  302. 

*  A  Wood,  Fasti,  161 1  :  'James  Martin,  of  Broadgates  Hall,  had  ended  his 
work  against  Baronius,  but  what  that  was  he  tells  us  not,  neither  in  truth  can  I 
tell.'  No  wonder  A,  Wood  could  not  tell.  Casaubon,  writing  to  Martin,  tells 
him  that  he  (Casaubon)  has  nearly  ended  his  work  on  Baronius.  This  is  the 
only  foundation  for  A.  Wood's  statement. 

'  Vita  Cas.  p.  58.  °  Bibl.  choisie,  19.  sag. 

Z  2 

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34Q  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

was  not  sufficiently  read  in  christian  antiquity,  but  had 
only  got  it  up  for  the  purpose  of  this  book.'  I  only  cite 
this  criticism  because  it  is  that  which  the  biographies  to 
this  day  continue  to  reproduce  as  a  judicious  summing  up 
of  the  case.  All  that  it  proves  is,  that  famous  reviewers  in 
lyog  judged  of  books  without  reading  them,  and  that  we 
copy  their  judgments. 

No  one  was  less  satisfied  with  his  work  than  the  author 
himself.  It  was  but  a  fragment  of  his  vast  scheme.  He 
designed,  if  he  lived,  a  continuation  of  it,  but  on  a  more 
constructive  plan.  He  proposed^  to  exhibit  an  impartial 
picture  of  the  internal  and  external  form  of  the  ancient 
church.  This  wish  was  never  fulfilled.  Among  the 
Adversaria"  are  some  very  short  notes  on  the  later 
volumes  of  Baronius,  some  of  which  are  printed  by 
Wolf  ^.  The  single  volume  of  the  '  Exercitationes '  is  all 
that  was  ever  realised  of  the  vast  schemes  of  ecclesiastical 
history  which  had  been  conceived  early  in  the  Genevan 
period,  and  which  had  been  postponed,  but  never  given 
up.  In  1596,  aet.  37,  rising  fresh  and  confident,  rather 
than  exhausted,  from  his  long  labour  on  Athenaeus,  he 
announced  to  Bongars*  that  he  should  now  proceed  to 
Polybius;  'after  which,  if  I  live,  with  God's  aid  I  shall 
put  my  hand  to  a  greater  undertaking.  I  desire  to  set 
an  example  to  men  of  our  side,  how  that  leaving  these 
gladiatorial  fencing-matches,  so  mischievous  to  the  chris- 
tian world,  they  should  turn  themselves  to  the  illustration 
of  the  holy  fathers,  and  the  affairs  of  the  primitive  church.' 

How  sad  must  have  appeared  to  himself  the  contrast 
between  the  promise  and  the  performance  eighteen  years 
later !  Writers  are  apt  to  flatter  themselves  that  they  are 
not,  like  the  men  of  action,  the  slaves  of  circumstance. 
They  think  they  can  write  what  and  when  they  choose. 
But  it  is  not  so.    Whatever  we  may  think  and  scheme,  as 

Ep.  950.  '  Tom.  3.  and  torn.  14. 

^  Casauboniana,  pp.  123-180.  *  Ep.  1008. 

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VI.]  ON  BARONIUS.  341 

soon  as  we  seek  to  produce  our  thoughts  or  schemes  to 
our  fellow-men,  we  are  involved  in  the  same  necessities  of 
compromise,  the  same  grooves  of  motion,  the  same  lia- 
bilities to  failure  or  half-measures,  as  we  are  in  life  and 
action.  Compared  with  the  vast  designs  we  frame  in 
youth,  all  production  seems  a  petty  and  abortive  effort ! 


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VII. 
LONDON;  ELY;   CAMBRIDGE. 

1610-1614. 

Casaubon  is  apt  to  complain  of  the  reluctance  he  finds 
in  himself  to  put  pen  to  paper.  When  he  did  do  so,  his 
hand  moved  with  rapidity.  '  Fervet  opus/  he  says  of  the 
review  of  Baronius^,  and  it  is  strictly  true.  He  began  to 
turn  his  attention  to  the  subject  early  in  the  year  1612, 
some  time  about  the  middle  of  January.  He  was  re- 
volving the  matter  for  several  weeks,  and  directing  his 
reading  towards  the  period  comprised  in  Baronius'  first 
volume.  But  in  such  a  wide  field  reading  was  not  yet 
become  search,  and  he  has  freedom  enough  of  mind  to 
be  enjoying  S.  Chrysostom,  in  Savile's  magnificent  edition, 
which  was  then  in  progress  I  On  March  23  he  is  ready 
to  sketch  a  plan  in  outhne  of  the  work  he  is  to  write  ^. 
On  April  27  he  begins  to  compose*.  'After  long  de- 
liberation, meditation,  preparation,  I  set  myself  seriously 
to  work  on  my  criticism  of  Baronius,  may  God  bless  the 
undertaking!  Thou,  merciful  Jesus,  knowest  that  it  is 
not  vanity,  or  desire  of  empty  fame,  which  moves  me  to 
undertake  a  work  of  such  magnitude,  but  the  single 
purpose  of  defending  truth ! ' 

At  first  he  writes  out  detached  criticisms.  On  July  27 
he  records  the  commencement  of  the  continuous  text  of 


'  Ep.  923. 

^  Ephem.  p.  926  ;  '  In  Chrysostomo  fui  et  hodie,  legique  multa  illius,  praesertim 
quae  scripsit  in  cap.  6.  Johannis.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  923.  *  Ephem.  p.  928. 


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LONDON.     1610-1614.  343 

his  book  ^.  His  progress,  rapid  as  it  seems  to  us,  was  not 
answerable  to  his  own  fervid  impatience.  On  August  12, 
he  writes  ^,  '  I  never  quit  my  work,  and  yet  I  do  not  get 
on  as  I  should  hke.'  He  toiled  on,  '  sweating,  more  than 
enough '  (sudavi  plus  satis  per  hos  intensissimos  calores) 
through  the  hot  months,  refusing  the  bishop's  invitation 
to  go  with  him  into  his  diocese,  and  on  the  last  day  of  the 
year  could  congratulate  himself  on  having  reached  the 
400th  page^.  On  April  20,  1613,  he  announced  to  de 
Thou  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  end  of  so  much  as  he 
meant  to  publish*  as  a  first  instalment, — of  the  whole, 
that  is,  of  the  book  as  it  now  stands.  On  May  16  the 
rough  draft  has,  by  successive  writing  and  rewriting  of 
parts,  been  brought  to  a  state  in  which  he  can  begin 
copying  it  out  for  press.  He  now  allows  himself  a  little 
holiday,  the  first  since  he  began  the  work  in  the  January  of 
1612.  He  visits  Oxford,  though,  in  this  visit,  he  has 
partly  in  view  to  make  extracts  from  books  in  the  Bodleian, 
not  to  be  had  in  London.  On  his  return,  on  June  9,  he 
begins  to  write  out  for  press,  and  sends  off  the  copy  to 
the  printer  as  fast  as  he  gets  it  done.  On  June  18  printing 
begins.  The  compositor  is  not  lacking  in  industry,  but 
does  not  work  up  to  the  author's  impatience,  and  being 
king's  printer,  is  taken  off  occasionally^-  Casaubon  can 
keep  ahead  of  the  press.  In  August,  the  production 
was  at  the  rate  of  a  '  folio '= four  pages  in  foHo,  per  day, 
at  which  rate  Casaubon  calculates  it  will  require  150  days 


1  Ephem.  p.  928 :  '  Hodie  observationes  in  Baronium  serio  sum  aggressus ; 
nam  hactenus  magis  paravi  subsidia  ad  scribendum  quam  scripsi;  nunc,  deo 
duce  ...  ad  opus  manum  adraovi.' 

2  Ep.  830 ;  '  Equidem  nullum  tempus  intermitto ;  etsi  quantum  promoveam 
me  sane  poeniteret.' 

=  Ephem.  p.  958. 

•  Ep.  883  :  '  Perveni,  dei  beneficio,  ad  finem  ejus  partis  quam  nunc  sum 
editurus,  qu^  etsi  satis  erit  magna,  ultra  Domini  vitam  tamen  non  pertinget.' 

'  Ep.  931  :  '  Oper^,  etsi  ill^  quidem  non  cessant,  segnius  tamen  pergunt 
quam  ut  incitatje  cupiditati  meae  faciant  satis.'  Ephem.  p.  991  :  '  Operis  inchoati 
editio  cessat.' 


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344  ISAAC  CAS  A  [/SON.  [Sect. 

to  finish^.  He  hoped  it  would  be  out  by  the  new  year. 
Gradually  this  date  receded;  'You  know  what  it  is  to 
get  a  book  through  the  press,'  he  writes  to  de  Thou^. 
On  November  i8,  he  has  passed  the  500th  page,  but 
there  are  220  pp.  more  to  come,  and  the  introductory 
epistle,  etc.  to  write  yet.  On  February  14  he  finishes 
the  epistle  to  the  reader,  and  at  last,  on  March  23,  the 
volum.e  is  presented  to  the  king.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
the  pubhsher,  Bill,  the  volume,  it  seems,  would  not  have 
ended  at  page  773.  The  author  could,  and  would,  have 
gone  on  indefinitely,  but  the  publisher  insisted  upon 
getting  it  out  in  time  for  the  Easter  Frankfort  fair,  and 
Casaubon  had  to  leave  out  part  of  his  long  discussion 
on  the  Eucharist.  After  all,  the  copies  which  went  to 
Frankfort  went  without  the  prolegomena,  which  could 
not  be  printed  off  in  time  ^. 

The  whole  work,  from  the  first  preparatory  notes  to  the 
day  of  publication,  was  achieved  in  two  years  and  two 
months.  Casaubon  shrank  from  no  drudgery.  He  had 
written  over  the  whole,  with  his  own  hand,  two  or  three 
times;  parts  of  it  even  four  times*,  adding  much  at  each 
revision,  though  also  rejecting  much  as  unsatisfactory 
upon  review^-  The  indexes  even  he  must  make  himself ^ 
a  fact  which  accounts  for  their  excellence. 

The  mere  clerical  labour  undergone  was  severe  for  one 
in  broken  health.  In  a  book  depending  so  largely  on 
textual  authorities,  the  mere  reference  involves  great  toil. 
Yet  mere  reference  was  the  lightest  part  of  what  had  to 
be  done.  It  is  a  comparatively  easy  thing  to  accumulate 
citations.  Exhaustive  research  is  a  different  process,— a 
process,  which,  while  it  has  much  fatiguing  exertion  of 

'  Ep.  906 :  '  Quolidie  folium  unum  editur ;   ita  duratura  est  h^c  editio  dies 
iprfaainovs  centum  et  quinquaginta  plus  minus.' 
^  Ep-  931  :  '  Non  te  fugit  quid  sit  libros  edere.' 
''  Ep.  941.  4  Ep   ggj 

°  Ephem.  p.  942  :  '  Quaedam  hodie,  sed  quae  mox  displicuerunt.' 
•  Ephem.  p.  1037  ;   '  Illiberales  istse  curse  de  indicibus.' 

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VII.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  345 

eye  and  memory,  derives  its  whole  value  from  the  in- 
telligence which  directs  it,  and  is  engaged  in  sifting  the 
material.  It  was  here  a  great  disadvantage  to  him  that  he 
was  without  his  own  copies  of  the  necessary  books,  copies 
in  which  he  knew  his  way  about,  guided  by  the  finger- 
posts which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  marking  in  the  margin  as 
aids  to  the  memory, '  quos  usu  contrivi.'  Yet  the  citations 
actually  made  use  of  in  the  '  Exercitations '  were  only  a 
small  part  of  the  whole  he  had  accumulated  ^  '  I  have  sur- 
passed the  most  diligent  in  diligence,'  he  says  ^.  '  Erycius 
Puteanus,  who  writes  that  I  am  abandoning  myself  to  the 
sloth  and  luxury  of  a  court,  and  have  renounced  letters, 
can  have  Httle  notion  of  the  hard  and  laborious  life  I  lead ! ' 
Of  this  research  there  could  be  no  record.  It  is  merged 
in  the  recurrent  formula  of  the  diary,  '  hodie  studia ; '  or 
TO.  lyKVKKia.  In  such  enquiries,  how  many  volumes  have 
to  be  gone  through  from  which  nothing  is  reaped! 
Wearying  as  his  task-reading  must  have  been,  his  recrea- 
tion was  only  reading  again.  In  September  1612,  e.  g.  we 
find  him  spending  his  '  leisure  hours '  ^  on  a  ms.  rabbinical 
commentary.  At  another  time  he  reads  *  a  pamphlet  sent 
him  by  the  king,  '  Trois  tr^s  excellentes  predications,'  etc., 
'not  worth  spending  a  moment  on,  but  for  the  passages 
in  which  the  preachers  unite  in  lauding  the  doctrine  of 
parricide.' 

It  is  only  occasionally  that  the  name  of  the  book  read 
is  entered  in  the  diary.  From  the  commencement  of  the 
'Exercitations'  to  the  end,  i.e.  two  years  and  a  half,  the 
following  are  all  that  are  chronicled :  Cyprian ;  Chryso- 
stom;    'many  pieces  of  him;'   'good  books,   especially 

•  Ep.  931  :  '  Exhaurire  adversaria  mea  si  voluero,  ante  annos  aliquot  non 
possim  manum  de  tabula.' 

^  Epp.  844.  923  :  '  Qui  putant  me  Tpv<p^v  in  hac  aula,  et  Uteris  airoTo^aaBm  ut 
SuribH  Puteanus,  parum  norunt  serumnas  laboriosissimae  vitae  raese  ! ' 

^  Ep.  832  :  '  Quicquid  superest  vacui  temporis,  ejus  magnam  partem  impendo 
lectioni  commentarii  Hebraici  in  Pirke  Avot.' 

*  Adversaria,  torn.  28. 

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346  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Chrysostom ; '  '  homilies  of  Chrysostom ; '  Chronology  of 
Liveley  in  ms.  ;  Jael  Moris,  b.m.  ;  Dionysius  Areopagita  ; 
'Lutheran  books;'  Hospinian,  Historia  sacra;  Rainolds, 
Liber  Prselectionum ;  CEcolampadius,  Dialogue  on  the 
Eucharist,  read  with  '  admiration  of  the  learning  of  the 
man,  and  his  acquaintance  with  the  greek  fathers ;'  Sermons 
of  S.  Augustine;  Tostati;  and  June  ii,  1614,  'much  in  S. 
Augustine.'  This  is  the  last  book  mentioned  as  read. 
Comparing  this  hst  with  the  '  Exercitations,'  we  see  how 
far  the  diary  is  from  being  any  record  of  the  reading  done 
at  the  time.  The  '  Exercitations'  quote  nearly  300  different 
authors,  reckoning  the  Councils  only  as  one,  and  taking 
no  account  of  the  texts  of  scripture  quoted.  Though  the 
'  Adversaria '  are  mostly  without  date,  yet  some  of  the 
extracts  from  books  can  be  identified  as  belonging  to  the 
last  two  years,  e.  g.  Tostati  is  only  named  on  one  day  in 
the  diary  1.  But  we  find  from  a  note  in  the  '  Adversaria  ^,' 
that  he  had  gone  through  the  voluminous  commentary 
on  S.  Matthew,  which  could  hardly  be  done  in  a  part  of 
a  day. 

We  have  seen  how  Casaubon  groaned  over  the  self- 
imposed  task  of  editing  Athenaeus^,  and  longed  to  have 
done  with  it.  The  more  serious  labour  of  refuting 
Baronius,  on  which  others  had  engaged  him,  he  held  to 
with  unflagging  zest.  He  only  took  one  hohday  in  the 
two  years  and  two  months,  and  that  was  for  a  short 
visit  to  Oxford.  During  the  whole  of  his  english  resi- 
dence, he  made  in  all  four  country  excursions,  his  attend- 
ances at  court  not  included.  In  Feb.  161 1  he  went  to 
Dover  to  meet  and  escort  Madame  Casaubon.  In  April, 
he  paid  a  visit  to  sir  Henry  Savile  at  Eton.     In  August 

'  Prid.  kal.  Aug.  1613  :  '  Reliquum  diem  in  Tostato  posui  viro  magno,  ut  illis 
temporibus,  et  pio.' 

'  Advers.  torn.  28  :  '  Tostati  obiter  quasdam  observabamus  cum  ejus  vastura 
commentarium  in  Matthasum  percurreremus.' 

'  See  above,  p.  no. 

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VII.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  347 

he  went  with  the  bishop  of  Ely  into  his  diocese,  and 
resided  with  him  at  Downham  for  two  months. 

It  was  Andrewes'  custom  to  spend  three  months  in  the 
summer  in  his  diocese.  The  air  of  the  fens  did  not  agree 
with  him  1,  but,  had  it  been  otherwise,  his  many  duties 
required  his  presence  in  town  the  greater  part  of  the 
year^  We  have  seen  above*  the  force  of  the  mutual 
attraction  which  brought  these  two  men  together.  On 
November  5,  1610,  in  the  very  first  days  of  Casaubon's 
arrival  in  town,  they  had  a  conversation  of  some  hours, 
in  which  the  knowledge  and  sense  of  Andrewes  greatly 
impressed  Casaubon*.  On  November  24,  the  bishop, 
who  is  hard  at  work,  the  king  urging  him,  on  his  answer 
to  Bellarmine,  reads  part  of  it  to  Casaubon  and  the  dean, 
that  he  may  have  their  corrections.  From  this  time 
Casaubon  sees  the  bishop  almost  daily  5.  It  seemed 
almost  a  matter  of  course  that  when  Andrewes  quitted 
town  for  his  diocese  he  should  take  Casaubon  with  him. 

They  started  July  26,  (161 1),  and  stopt  at  Cambridge, 
which  it  took  them  two  days  to  reach.  Here  they  were 
lodged  at  Peterhouse,  of  which  the  bishop  was  visitor. 
The  master,  Richardson,  was  a  man  of  some  reading ;  at 
least  he  had  read  in  his  youth,  and  in  a  line  of  reading  not 
very  common — he  knew  something  of  the  imperialist 
chroniclers.  The  dispute  between  the  emperor  Henry 
IV.  and  the  see  of  Rome  was  a  subject  that  interested 
Casaubon  just  now,  and  Richardson  obliged  him  with  the 
loan  of  books  on  the  subject,  and  others  ^,  to  Downham. 
Four  years  after  Casaubon's  visit,  1615,  Richardson  was 

'  Isaacson,  Life  and  Death,  etc.,  p.  xxix  :  'The  air  of  that  place  not  agreeing 
with  the  constitution  of  his  body.' 
■  ^  It  would  seem  that  the  bishops  of  Ely  were  habitual  non-residents.    Masters, 
Life  of  Baker,  dedic,  speaks  of  Bp.  York's  'unusual  residence  in  his  diocese.' 

'  See  p.  292. 

'  Ephem.  p.  783  :  '  Cum  sapientissimo  et  doctissimo  viro  D.  Episcopo  Eliensi 
aliquot  horas  posui.' 

^  Ep.  754 :  '  Mihi  cum  illo  praesule  quotidiana  consuetudo  intercedit.' 

'  Burney  mss.  365.  p.  350. 

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348  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

promoted  to  the  mastership  of  Trinity.  Casaubon  'will 
excuse  the  notes  which  he  had  scribbled  many  years  ago 
on  the  margin  of  his  Optatus  Milevitanus,  and  which  were 
only  intended  as  aids  to  memory.'  The  next  morning 
Casaubon  was  shown  over  the  colleges  by  his  old  corre- 
spondent Richard  Thomson,  who,  though  it  was  vacation, 
was  to  be  found  in  Clare  Hall.  After  dining  at  Peter- 
house,  the  bishop  and  Casaubon  went  on  to  Downham, 
making  a  call  upon  the  dean  at  Ely  by  the  way. 

In  this  summer  retreat  in  the  country,  Casaubon  enjoyed 
forty-eight  days  of  peace  and  leisure,  without  the  daily 
urgency  of  a  literary  task.  These  few  weeks  were  all  of 
english  country  life  he  was  destined  to  see.  The  flat  fen 
of  Donnington  is  not  a  favourable  specimen  of  our  rural 
scenery,  but  Casaubon  thought  it  beautiful  ^,  coming  from 
S.  Mary  Axe.  Though  he  had  lived  at  Montpellier,  he 
thought  the  apricots  of  the  isle  of  Ely  rivalled  those  of 
France  in  flavour.  He  was  struck  with  the  wealthy 
appearance  of  the  country.  He  saw  something  of  pro- 
vincial life,  accompanying  the  bishop  on  a  progress,  or 
visitation,  which  he  made  to  Wisbech  and  the  neighbour- 
hood. Here  Casaubon,  who  was  a  keen  observer  of  any- 
thing new,  made  acquaintance  with  the  bittern  and  the 
bustard,  with  turf  fires  and  stilts.  He  enquired  into  the 
fattening  of  godwits  for  the  London  market;  into  the 
manufacture  of  rape  seed ;  the  culture  of  hemp  ;  the  con- 
struction of  the  Ely  '  lantern.'  He  was  pleased  at  being 
able  to  verify,  in  the  isle  of  Ely,  the  description  in  the 
'  Panegyrici  ^ '  of  the  trembhng  bog  in  the  Low  countries. 
The  current  volume  of  the  diary  was  taken  down  to 
Downham,  but  on  this  progress  Casaubon  allowed  him- 
self to  be  separated  from  it.  He  made  the  notes  of  these 
six   days   on   a  separate   sheet   of  paper,   which   is   still 


^  Ephem.  p.  865  :  '  Ipse  ager  Dunnitoniensis  et  re  et  specie  pulcherrimus  est.' 
'  Eumenius,  Paneg.  Constantii,  c.  8. 


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VII.]  ELY.     i6li.  349 

preserved  among  his  'Adversaria,'  and  on  his  return  to 
Downham  copied  them  into  the  diary. 

His  greatest  pleasure  in  this  retreat  was  the  conver- 
sation of  the  bishop,  from  whom  he  was  not  willing  to  be 
parted^.  But  they  could  not  be  together  all  day,  and 
Casaubon  could  not  do  without  books.  It  should  seem 
that  in  bishop  Cox's  spacious  palace,  on  which  Andrewes 
also^,  during  his  ten  years'  occupancy,  expended  a  con- 
siderable sum,  there  was  no  library.  The  bishops  had  no 
official  libraries.  Andrewes  had  a  very  choice  collection 
of  his  own,  but  it  was  in  London*.  During  his  three 
months'  abode  at  Downham  he  depended  on  supplies 
from  Cambridge.  The  master  of  Peterhouse  undertook 
to  supply  Casaubon,  but  seems  to  have  ill  taken  the 
measure  of  his  voracious  appetite*.  In  these  days  in 
which  he  was  reading,  not  to  write,  but  simply  for 
reading's  sake,  he  read  Baronius,  '  Prsescriptiones  ad- 
versus  haereticos ; '  Camerarius, '  Vita  Melanchthonis ; '  Id. 
'  Epistolae ;  *  Whitaker,  '  Contra  Campianum ; '  Eunapius  ; 
Optatus  Milevitanus;  several  volumes  of  the  writers 
on  the  dispute  between  the  emperor  and  the  pope, 
published  by  Goldast.  These  last  were  new  to  him, 
being  only  just  published.  The  others  he  had  read 
before,  and  had  not  asked  for.  They  were  Richardson's 
selection  for  him.  But  Casaubon,  famished  as  he  was, 
was  not  nice  in  his  choice,  and  was  not  sorry  to  go  over 
old  ground  at  leisure.  Of  Camerarius'  epistles  he  made 
copious  notes.  ^ '  Whoever  desires  to  make  proficiency  in 
the  art  of  living  piously  should  read  them.'     Hadrian 

'  Ephem.  864  :  '  Libenter  facio  ut  a  tanto  viro  ne  divellar.' 

^  £2440  altogether  on  Ely  House,  Downham,  and  Wisbech  Castle.  See 
Isaacson,  Life  and  Death,  p.  xv. 

'  See  Andrewes,  Works,  vol.  j..  p.  cxiv. 

*  Burney  mss.  365.  p.  350 :  '  Credo  te  librorum  tibi  cupere  aliorum  copiam 
fieri,  cum  priores  superiore  septimana  missos  longe  ante  hoc  temporis  totos 
evolveris.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  862 :  '  Legat  eas  epistolas  qui  vult  in  arte  vitse  hujus  pie  degendae 
proficere.' 

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350  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

Junius' '  Animadversiones,'  another  offer  of  Richardson's  \ 
'  though  often  handled  by  me,  yet,  in  the  dearth  of  other 
books,  I  was  not  sorry  to  read  again,  for  the  author  was 
really  a  learned  man.'  Even  on  the  progress,  he  could 
not  be  without  a  book,  and  took  Eunapius  and  Whitaker 
with  him  for  the  purpose.  At  the  house  of  a  gentleman 
in  Wisbech  he  saw  the  Prophecies  of  Abbot  Joachim  in 
latin  and  italian^.  He  writes  from  Downham  to  de  Thou 
that  ^ '  I  contrive  to  support  myself  by  the  conversation 
of  the  bishop,  and  by  reading  such  books  as  I  can  get 
hold  of  here.' 

But  country  life  without  books  could  not  long  charm 
him.  And  reading  for  reading's  sake  was  now  no  longer 
possible  to  him.  The  furor  of  mere  acquisition  had  now 
come  to  be  the  ambition  to  reproduce,  to  rebuild.  He 
becomes  more  and  more  restless.  He  worries  himself 
because  his  time  is  lying  idle ;  because  he  is  not  grinding 
at  the  theological  work  of  which  he  is  ever  dreaming,  and 
which  never  came  to  anything.  He  loads  the  autumnal 
air  of  the  pleasaunce  at  Downham  with  sighs  and  groans 
because  Madame  Casaubon  is  away  in  France,  and  because 
he  does  not  hear  from  her  by  every  post,  i.  e.  twice  a 
week*.  '  I  am  amazed  at  this  continued  silence  of  my 
wife  and  all  my  people !  What  can  it  mean  ?  It  is  torture 
to  me,  torture!'  He  fixes  a  day  for  his  departure.  The 
bishop  will  not  hear  of  it ;  detains  him  '  with  the  golden 
chains  of  courtesy.'  Thomson,  who  is  at  Bury  S.  Ed- 
munds, implores  him  to  defer  his  departure  till  Friday*, 
when  he  is  coming  over  to  Downham,  that  he  may  have 
the  benefit  of  Casaubon's  powerful  intercession  with  the 

'  Advers.  torn.  25.  p.  121.  »  Advers.  25.  p.  115. 

'  Ep.  743 :  '  Sermonibus  cum  ipso,  et  librorum,  quos  hie  nancisci  possum, 
lectione,  me  sustento.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  864 :  '  Ad  hoc  silentium  uxoris  et  meorum  stupeo.  Deus  bone 
quid  est !  quiddicam?  quid  suspicabor  ?  crucior,  crucior  animi.' 

'  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  251  :  'Tu,  nisi  incommodum  sit,  in  diem  Veneris 
profectionem  tuam  differ.' 

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VH.]  ELY.     1611.  351 

bishop,  'to  whom  he  entirely  entrusts  himself  and  his 
case.' 

There  was  a  cabal,  in  his  own  college,  Clare  Hall,  to 
turn  him  out  of  some  university  office  he  held.  Some 
allegations  could  be  brought  against  his  morals.  Thom- 
son, though  of  english  parentage,  was  a  native  of  Holland, 
and  had  perhaps  imbibed  the  taste  of  the  country.  But, 
besides  a  weakness  for  strong  waters,  he  was  suspected  of 
a  much  more  criminal  weakness  for  Arminianism.  The 
archbishop  had  been  made  to  conceive  a  very  bad  opinion 
of  him.  '  How  I  am  to  recover  his  favour,'  writes  Thom- 
son^ to  Casaubon  in  161 1,  'I  have  not  yet  been  able  to 
discover  any  channel.'  As  for  the  charge  of  his  enemies 
that  he  was  not  qualified  to  preside  over  the  exercises  in 
the  schools,  he  declares  it  to  be  ridiculous.  Things  must 
have  gone  to  a  great  length,  for  in  August,  161 1,  Thomson 
is  informed  that  the  master  of  Clare  is  getting  a  memorial 
against  him  signed  in  the  university.  ^'What  is  most 
grievous  to  me  is  that  they  have  gone  the  length  of 
waiting  on  the  bishop  of  Ely  to  calumniate  to  him  my 
walk  and  character,  nay,  a  thing  which  is  ludicrous,  to 
represent  that  I  am  unfit  for  my  office.  As  if  I  were  such 
a  fool  and  so  inexperienced  as  not  to  be  qualified  to 
preside  over  the  disputations  in  the  schools.'  This  letter 
reached  Casaubon  while  he  was  staying  with  the  bishop 
of  Ely.  He  seems  to  have  thought  that  the  best  way  to 
impress  Andrewes  favourably  was  to  let  him  see  Thomson. 
Accordingly,  Thomson  was  invited  to  Downham,  and  the 
three  together  passed  an  evening  in  that  talk  which  alone 
compensated  Casaubon  for  being  kept  out  of  his  study. 
The  further  issue  of  Thomson's  affair  is  not  known  to 


'  Burney  Mss.  366.  p.  251 :  '  Hujus  gratiam  quomodo  mihi  conciliem  viam 
iiullam  invenire  aut  aperire  hactenus  possum.' 

^  Ibid.  -.  '  Quod  prsecipue  mihi  cordolio  est  etiam  rev.  episcopum  Eliensem 
convenire  ausos  super  moribus  ac  vita  mea,  imo,  quod  ridiculum  prorsus  est, 
super  insufficientiam  regiminis.' 


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353  /SAAC  CASAVBON.  [Sect. 

me.  This  is  the  last  occasion  on  which  his  name  occurs 
in  conjunction  with  that  of  Casaubon.  Thomson  endea- 
voured to  propitiate  the  bishop  of  Ely  by  writing  a 
pamphlet  in  defence  of  his  '  Tortura  Torti  K' 

After  many  postponements,  Casaubon's  feverish  im- 
patience to  get  back  to  his  books  tore  him  away  from 
Downham,  in  spite  of  the  bishop's  manifest  displeasure 
at  this  disregard  of  his  hospitality.  He  stopped  again 
at  Cambridge  on  his  way  up,  went  over  the  rest  of  the 
colleges,  and  being  pressed  by  the  master  of  Peterhouse, 
stayed  a  second  night  in  order  to  meet  the  professors  at 
supper  at  the  vice-chancellor's^.  The  literary  character 
of  the  conversation  pleased  him,  and  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Harrison,  who  was  able  to  show  him  two 
books  which  were  new  to  him:  Hugo,  abbot  of  S.  Victor, 
'On  the  Psalms;'  and  a  volume  of  the  numerous  works  of 
Dionysius,  called  the  '  Carthusian.' 

In  1612,  Casaubon  gave  himself  no  holiday.  The 
bishop  of  Ely  would  gladly  have  taken  him  down  into 
his  diocese  again.  And  there  was  the  more  inducement 
to  Casaubon  to  go,  as  the  heat  of  London  in  that  August 
was  excessive.  '  Plus  aequo  sudavi,'  Casaubon  writes  to 
de  Thou.  On  the  vigil  of  S.  Bartholomew,  August  23, 
o.  s.  the  bishop  writes  from  Downham  ^ : — 

'  If  you  had  been  here  you  would  have  escaped  heats 
of  all  sorts,  those  of  the  dog-days  inclusive.  At  Downham 
we  never  know  what  heat  is.  It  is  true  I  have  caught 
a  fever,  but  from  cold,  exposing  myself  too  long  to  the 
chill  of  the  evening.  In  the  city  the  radiation  from  so 
many  walls,  against  an  atmosphere  thickened  with  coal 
smoke,  and  fog,  makes  what  is  with  us  a  very  small 
puppy  (of  a  dogstar)  into  a  molossian  hound.  .  .  Come 


'  Elenchus   refutationis   Torturae   Torti  pro  rev.  episcopo  Eliense  adversus 
Martinura  Becanum,  8°.  Lond.  1611. 

^  The  diary,  p.  887,  has  '  Cancellarium.' 

'  Burney  MSS.  363,  printed  in  Andrewes'  Works,  Bliss,  1.  xliii. 


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VII.]  ELY.     i6ii.  353 

to  me,  therefore,  down  here;  come,  if  you  will,  on  the 
day  you  left  us  last  year,  S.  Augustine's  day;  and  may 
the  saint  be  more  propitious  to  your  return  than  he  was 
to  your  departure  last  autumn,  when  he  expressed  his 
displeasure  at  your  leaving  us  by  a  storm  of  rain.  Come 
and  see  a  fair  celebrated  throughout  England  ^ ;  or  if  you 
have  no  taste  in  fairs,  you  shall  have  a  hebrew  S.  Matthew, 
which  is  in  Corpus  library. 

'  Do  be  persuaded  to  come,  I  shall  get  well  at  once  if  I 
can  only  see  you.  If  it  is  only  a  few  days'  relaxation  it 
will  do  you  good.  You  shall  shoot  a  deer,  and  rest  after 
your  three  months'  hard  labour.  We  will  let  you  go 
away  when  you  please.  Be  so  good  as  to  remember  that 
the  hand  which  writes  these  lines  has  the  ague.  God  keep 
you  long  to  be  an  ornament  to  letters.' 

'  On  Sturbridge  fair,  see  the  exhaustive  references  of  Mayor,  '  Life  of 
Bonwicke,'  pp.  153  seq.  [and  a  paper  read  by  the  late  Cornelius  Walford  before 
the  Library  Association  at  Cambridge  in  i88a]. 


A  a 
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VIII. 
VISIT  TO   OXFORD, 

1613. 

In  May,  1613,  having  finished  the  volume  of  'Exer- 
citations/  at  least  in  the  rough  draft,  and  Madame 
Casaubon  being  departed  into  France,  Casaubon  takes  at 
last  a  holiday,  and  an  excursion  out  of  town. 

He  had  long  meditated  a  visit  to  Oxford.  He  had  an- 
nounced this  intention  at  court  some  time  before.  The 
king  took  a  great  interest  in  the  occasion.  ^ '  What,  not 
off  to  Oxford  yet ! '  cried  James  in  surprise  at  seeing  him 
again  in  April;  'you  don't  seem  much  in  earnest  about 
going.'  Thinking  the  delay  might  be  emptiness  of  pocket, 
he  removed  this  difficulty  by  a  present.  At  last,  on 
Thursday,  May  17,  having^  locked  up  his  library  and 
taken  the  key  with  him,  he  left  London,  and  went  to  sir 
Henry  Savile's  at  Eton.  Two  years  before,  Savile  had 
engaged  him  ^  to  make  the  same  tour,  and  Casaubon  had 
promised  to  meet  him  on  August  i  at  Oxford.  The 
scheme  had  been  more  than  once  proposed*,  but  had 
not  been  executed.  Savile  supposed  the  difficulty  to  be 
want  of  the  means  of  locomotion,  and,  surprised  to  hear 
that  Casaubon  had  been  many  months  in  London,  and  yet 
not  set  up  a  horse,  placed  his  own  carriage  at  his  disposal, 


'  Ep.  822:  'Videris  rem  non  multum  curare.' 
'^  Burney  Mss.  366. 

"  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  55  :  '  De  kal.  Aug.  Oxonii  vide  ne  vadimonium  deseras, 
nisi  antea  tibi  commodum  fuerit,  hue  venire,  illudque  iter  una  conficere.' 
*  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  56 :  '  Toties  spem  fallenti.' 


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OXFORD  VISIT.     1613.  ^t^K^ 

and  offered  to  send  it  for  him  any  day  that  he  would 
orders  Casaubon's  delay  was  due  partly  to  his  much 
occupied  time,  but  partly  also  to  his  little  incHnation  for 
Savile  personally.  He  would  have  preferred  to  have 
made  his  appearance  at  Oxford  alone,  but  it  was  im- 
possible, when  sir  Henry  made  a  point  of  himself  doing 
the  honours  of  his  university. 

On  Friday,  May  18,  Savile,  who  was  at  the  same  time 
provost  of  Eton  and  warden  of  Merton,  took  him  in  his 
coach  ^  to  Oxford,  twenty-seven  miles,  as  Casaubon  is 
careful  to  note.  He  must  have  found  them  long  ones, 
as  the  distance  by  the  old  road  was  over  thirty-seven^, 
and  as,  notwithstanding  Savile's  persistent  attention  to 
him,  no  cordiality  ever  existed  between  the  two  men. 

If  common  studies  were  sufficient  to  cement  friend- 
ships, Savile  was  the  one  man  in  England,  in  whose 
society  it  might  have  been  anticipated  that  Casaubon 
would  have  found  himself  at  home.  Their  correspond- 
ence had'begun  by  letter  in  1596,  when  Casaubon,  at 
Thomson's  instigation,  had  written  at  the  same  time  to 
Camden  and  Savile,  as  the  two  Englishmen  who  interested 
themselves  in  greek  learning.  Casaubon  had  asked  Savile 
for  aid  in  his  Polybius ;  Savile  had  sought,  and  received, 
collations,  or  communication  of  mss,  for  the  Chrysostom. 
Nor  was  theological  diversity  here  a  bar  to  intimacy,  for 
Savile  was  even  more  anti-puritan  than  Casaubon  him- 
self*. But  there  was  an  innate  antagonism  of  character 
which  dissociated  them.  Casaubon,  insignificant  in 
presence,  the  most  humble  of  men,  but  intensely  real, 

'  Burney  mss.  366.  p.  52  :  '  Heus  tu,  post  tot  menses  quibus  hseres  Londini, 
nee  nos  invisis,  scribis  te  Ittno&orr^v  non  esse  ?  haec  mihi,  qui  ad  diem  quemvis  a 
te  prsestitutum  currum  tibi  meum  praesto  futurum  receperim  ?  .  .  .  mone  ad 
quem  diem  te  Londini  jubeas  automedonta  meum  expectare.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  980  :  '  In  rheda  ipsius.' 

'  On  the  reckoning  of  distances  in  miles  in  the  17th  century  see  the  remarks 
in  Wheatley's  preface  to  Smith's  '  Description  of  England.' 

*  A.  Wood,  Hist,  et  Antiq.  i.  1590:  '(Savilius)  vir  a  supervacaneis  hisce 
catharorura  inventis  alienissimus.' 

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356  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

knowing  what  he  knew  with  fatal  accuracy,  and  keeping 
his  utterance  below  his  knowledge.  Sir  Henry,  the 
munificent  patron  of  learning,  and  devoting  his  fortune 
to  its  promotion,  with  a  fine  presence,  polished  manners, 
and  courtly  speech,  was  not  free  from  the  swagger  and 
braggadocio  affected  by  the  courtiers  of  James  and 
Charles.  He  would  enact  the  patron,  but  he  also  desired 
to  be  accepted  by  the  experts  as  an  expert,  because  he 
patronised  them.  Aubrey  had  heard  Hobbes  say  ^'that 
he  (Savile)  would  faine  have  been  thought  to  have  been 
as  great  a  scholar  as  Joseph  Scaliger.'  To  be  well  with 
Savile,  you  must  not  only  accept  his  patronage,  you  must 
admit  his  greek  scholarship.  In  his  acknowledgments  to 
those  who  assisted  him  in  the  Chrysostom,  Isaac  Casaubon 
is  named  ^  indeed  among  a  crowd  of  scholars,  but  Savile 
will  owe  his  admission  to  the  royal  library,  or  rather  the 
admission  of '  our  copyists '  (nostri  librarii),  to  nothing  less 
than  to  the  interposition  of  the  '  ambassador  of  my  sove- 
reign.' He  liked  to  have  learned  men  about  him,  not  that 
he  wanted  to  hear  what  they  had  to  say,  but  that  he  might 
show  them.  No  one  but  he  must  exhibit  the  lion  of  the 
day  to  the  university,  and  he  now  had  the  glory  of  driving 
up  High  Street  in  full  term,  bringing  in  his  coach  Isaac 
Casaubon,  a  little  respected  as  the  first  greek  scholar  living, 
much  envied  as  a  prime  favourite  of  the  monarch. 

Notwithstanding  their  long  journey,  Casaubon  was 
out  immediately  to  take  a  survey  of  the  colleges  and 
halls, — a  survey  which  he  completed,  with  his  usual 
plodding  thoroughness,  on  Saturday  morning.  The 
splendour  of  the  buildings  filled  him  with  admiration  of 
^'the  piety  and  magnificence  of  our  ancestors.'  Above 
all  the  then,  as  now,  unfinished  design  of  the  great  cardinal 
struck  him  with  wonder  at  the  grandeur  of  the  conception. 
As  evidence  that  the   sources   of  founders'  munificence 

'  Aubrey,  Lives,  2.  524.  ^  Chrysost.  0pp.  torn.  i.  lectori. 

"  Ephem.  p.  980 ;  '  Nostrorum  majorum  pietatem  et  magnificentiara.' 

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VIII.]  OXFORD   VISIT.     1613.  357 

were  not  dried  up,  he  noticed  that  much  building  was 
going  on  at  Merton,  where  Savile  was  just  finishing 
the  fine  fi-ontage  towards  the  meadow.  Besides  this^ 
there  was  the  usual  rebuilding  going  on^,  occasioned 
by  the  perishing  of  the  oolitic  stone.  A  middle-age 
building,  says  Michelet,  is  no  sooner  finished  than  it 
requires  to  be  repaired. 

After  dinner  he  was  taken  to  see  the  Saturday  dis- 
putation in  the  divinity  school  at  which  the  regius 
professor  of  theology  moderated.  The  regius  professor 
at  this  time  was  Robert  Abbot,  master  of  BalHol.  Abbot 
was  a  man  of  some  reading,  and,  though  he  had  a  brother 
who  was  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  though  he  had 
been  able  to  prove  the  pope  to  be  anti-christ,  was  not 
unworthy  of  the  position  he  held.  Casaubon  was  already 
acquainted  with  Abbot,  who  was  occasionally  about  the 
court.  Now  that  he  came  to  see  him  officiate,  he  was 
highly  satisfied  both  with  the  ability  and  the  doctrine  of 
the  regius  professor.  His  conduct  of  the  disputation  was 
everything  that  could  be  desired.  On  the  critical  question 
of '  faith  and  works,'  for  which  all  ears  were  then  highly 
sensitive,  he  entirely  satisfied  Casaubon's  judicial  mind. 
He  took,  as  became  his  office,  a  moderate  position,  not 
repudiating  the  Calvinism  of  the  old  school,  and  making 
sufficient  concession  to  the  arminianism  of  the  new  school. 
It  was  well  known  that  his  own  habits  of  thought  attached 
him  to  the  calvinistic  side,  and  that  he  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  new  anglo-catholic  modes  of  thinking,  which 
were  rising  into  consideration,  and  were  being  pushed 
on  by  the  younger  zeal  of  Laud.  Abbot,  too,  was  a  rising 
man,  and  on  his  preferment,  and  was  accordingly  contri- 
buting his  pamphlet  to  the  grand  battle  which  was  raging. 
His  'Antilogia'  was  inHhe  press  at  the  time  of  Casaubon's 
visit.    As  he  was  going  over  in  it,  in  more  detail,  the  same 

'  Ep.  899 :  '  Quasdam  collegia  a  fundamentis  nova  extruuntur.' 
^  See  above,  p.  314,  note  i. 

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358  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

ground  which  Casaubon  had  travelled  in  the  '  Epistola  ad 
Frontonem,'  and  had  for  the  purpose  the  same  collection 
of  papers  from  the  Tower  records  which  had  been  in 
Casaubon's  hands  ^  this  formed  at  once  a  common  topic. 
Casaubon  saw  that  he  could  not  consult  a  more  judicious 
critic,  and  put  six  sheets  of  his  '  Exercitationes '  into  his 
hands  with  the  entreaty  that  he  would  revise  them  in  good 
earnest  ^. 

On  Sunday,  sir  Henry  exhibited  his  guest  at  both 
sermons,  taking  him  to  dine  between  times  at  the  deanery 
at  Christ  Church.  Casaubon  was  furnished  by  the  arch- 
bishop with  letters  of  introduction  to  the  dean.  On 
Monday,  Savile  left  to  return  to  Eton,  and  the  dean 
insisted^  on  Casaubon  transferring  himself  for  the  re- 
mainder of  his  stay  to  the  deanery.  The  dean  was 
William  Goodwin,  a  man  of  no  learning,  but  a  judicious 
ecclesiastic,  who  accumulated  the  duties  of  the  arch- 
deaconry of  Middlesex  with  those  of  his  deanery — 'vir 
probus  et  plus '  is  all  Casaubon  can  say  of  him — but  who 
would  not  fail  in  the  exercise  of  hospitality  to  a  "man  who 
came  recommended  by  the  archbishop.  He  maintained 
his  acquaintance  with  Casaubon,  and  visited  him  in 
London  afterwards. 

The  usual  honorary  degree  was,  of  course,  offered,  nay, 
pressed  on  him*.  But  Casaubon's  good  sense  steadily 
dechned  a  decoration  which,  from  being  lavished  on  rank 
or  political  partisanship,  is  no  proper  distinction  of  learn- 
ing or  letters. 

He  did  not  come  with  any  special  interest  in  the  working 
of  the  academical  system.    But  some  points  in  Oxford  life. 


'  Calendar  of  State  papers,  domestic,  Jas.  i. 

"  Ephem.  p.  983 :  '  Meum  opus  D.  Abotio  communicavi,  qui  utinam  seriam 
censuram  exerceat.' 

"  Ephem.  p.  981  :  '  Volentem,  nolentem  in  suas  wdes  introduxit.' 

'  Ep.  885  ;  '  Scio  cogitare  illos  titulis  magnificis  me  ornare.'  Ep.  899  : 
'  Omnes  ituBava-^Kai  sunt  ab  iis  adhibitse  ut  me  summis  honoribus  insignirent,' 

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Vni.]  OXFORD   VISIT.     1613.  359 

those  especially  which  contrasted  strongly  with  the  usages 
of  Paris,  impressed  themselves  upon  his  never  inobservant 
eye.  In  Paris,  as  in  the  Jesuit  colleges,  the  scholars  were 
as  schoolboys,  and  as  such  were  looked  after  by  the 
principals  and  the  regents.  In  Oxford,  on  the  contrary, 
the  students  lived  as  young  gentlemen,  in  their  separate 
chambers  apart,  only  meeting  for  the  college  exercises, 
and  common  meals.  The  heads  and  fellows  of  colleges, 
though  governing  and  teaching  the  inmates  of  their 
respective  houses,  lived  for  themselves  and  for  learning ; 
or  if  not  for  learning,  at  least  with  other  than  paedagogic 
objects;  an  arrangement  which  approved  itself  to  him 
highly  ^.  The  heads  of  colleges,  some  of  them,  '  lived  like 
noblemen,  splendidly,  yea,  magnificently,  having  an  income 
of  loooo  livres  annual.'  Hence  the  virtue  of  hospitality, 
which,  whatever  else  has  been  wanting,  has  never  failed 
in  Oxford.  Casaubon's  refusal  of  their  honours  did  not 
damp  the  hearty  welcome  which  the  colleges  were  ambi- 
tious to  offer  him.  '  It  was  one  succession  of  banquets,' 
writes  Casaubon^,  among  which  Magdalen  was  distin- 
guished by  its  sumptuosity^.  Abbot,  with  all  his  occupa- 
tion on  his  book,  was  not  behind  the  dean  in  hospitality, 
but  entertained  the  stranger  on  May  28,  with  princely 
magnificence  *,  which  the  recent  annexation  of  a  canonry, 
and  of  Ewelme,  to  the  professorship  of  divinity  by  James, 
enabled  him  to  show.  Casaubon  must  have  mentally 
compared  these  scenes  with  the  condition  of  the  Paris 
school,  its  buildings  ruined,  and  its  funds  dilapidated  by 
civil  war.  He  never  saw  the  Sorbonne  in  all  its  glory, 
such  as  it  became   after  a  generation  of  peace,  when 

'  Ep.  899  :  '  Quod  valde  probavi,  abest  a  collegiis  Anglorum  ilia,  quam  vocant 
nostri  psedagogicam  vitse  rationem  .  .  .  res  studiosorum  et  rationes  separatae 
sunt;  quod  valde  probavi.'  These  words  were  not  understood  by  Hallam,  who 
quotes  the  passage,  Lit.  of  Europe,  2.  231. 

^  Ephem.  p.  984 :  '  In  perpetuis  conviviis  versamur.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  983  :  '  Pransi  sumus  in  Coll.  Magd.  lautissimo  apparatu.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  983 :  '  Regie  apparatu  suos  convivas  excepit.' 

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360  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Quesnel  ^  says,  '  Une  licence  de  theologie  de  Paris  est, 
dans  le  genre  des  exercices  de  litterature,  un  de  plus 
beaux  spectacles  qui  se  trouvait  au  monde.'  To  this 
wealth  of  the  colleges  Casaubon  ^  once  ascribed  the  self- 
conceit  of  Englishmen;  forgetting  that  he  had  had  to 
make  the  same  complaint  of  the  Paris  regents  when  he 
first  came  in  contact  with  them  ^  The  self-complacency 
of  the  Parisian  academic  certainly  was  not  due  to  wealth. 

The  passive  victim  of  all  this  feasting,  Casaubon,  devoted 
many  hours  each  day  of  his  stay  to  reading.  The  focus  of 
his  interests,  and  one  principal  object  of  his  journey,  was 
the  Bodleian.  Only  opened  in  1604,  this  library,  so  rare 
then  were  public  libraries,  had  already  begun  to  attract  to 
Oxford  men  from  foreign  parts  and  distant  countries.  The 
arrangements  were  favourable  to  work.  It  was  open  for 
six  hours  a  day,  three  in  the  morning,  and  as  many  in  the 
afternoon.  It  was  closed  for  two  hours  at  eleven  or  twelve, 
then  the  hours  of  dinner  in  the  colleges  *.  As  the  pubHc 
exercises  were  resumed  in  the  afternoon,  and  common- 
rooms  as  yet  were  not  in  existence,  dinner,  however 
sumptuous,  could  not  last  beyond  one  or  two  o'clock, 
according  to  the  season.  This  system  of  official  punc- 
tuality in  the  service  of  the  library  contrasted  very  favour- 
ably with  the  usage  of  the  king's  library  at  Paris,  where 
the  librarians  had  no  hours  ^,  and  admission  to  which  was 
matter  of  special  request  and  favour. 

From  what  has  been  said  of  Casaubon's  reading,  it  may 
appear  that  he  is  omnivorous,  and  that  nothing  comes 

^  Vie  de  M.  Arnauld,  quoted  by  Jourdain. 

'^  Ep.  831 :  '  Est  insitum  huic  nationi,  ut  sua  amet,  aliena  ne  admittat  quidem 
ad  aliquam  comparationem.  Florentissima  enim  et  ditissima  sua  collegia  ipsis 
animos  faciunt  ut  omnes  non  vereantur  prae  se  contemnere.' 

^  See  above,  p.  i68. 

'  These  early  hours  held  their  ground  till  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  1753,  Horace  Walpole,  Walp.  to  Bentley,  found  '  that  fashion 
has  so  far  prevailed  over  custom,  that  they  have  altered  the  hour  of  dinner  from 
12  to  I.' 

°  Cas.  Ep.  ad  Bibran.  ed.  Schultze,  p.  7 :  '  Die  lunse  bibliothecam  Jortasse 
adibimus.' 

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VIII.]  OXFORD   VISIT.     1613.  361 

amiss  to  him.  This  is  almost,  but  not  quite,  so.  His  aim 
was  to  interpret  the  ancients ;  and  as  this  could  only  be  by 
themselves,  he  desired  to  read  all  the  remains  of  the  greek 
and  latin  writers.  But  the  want  of  assorted  libraries,  and 
of  the  catalogues  to  which  such  libraries  have  given 
occasion,  made  it  difficult  to  know  what  texts  had  been 
printed  since  the  beginning  of  the  art.  Still  more  was  the 
coming  across  an  inedited  ms.  an  affair  of  chance.  Casaubon 
is  all  his  life  through  straitened  in  the  matter  of  books. 
'  It  has  been  one  of  the  heaviest  disadvantages  of  my 
studies,'  he  says  ^,  '  that  I  have  hitherto  lived  among  men 
who  did  not  care  to  have  even  the  most  necessary  books. 
I  have  therefore  been  obliged  to  supply  myself  out  of  my 
own  purse,  with  almost  all  the  ancient  authors  whom  I 
have  read.  Some  there  are  which  I  have  never  been  able 
to  procure  at  any  price ;  such  as  Palaephatus,  of  whom  I 
once  met  with  a  ms.  at  Orange,  but  have  never  seen  since. 
Here  at  last  (Paris),  by  divine  favour,  I  got  one  and  read 
it  greedily^.'  On  settling  in  Paris  he  came,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  into  comparative  plenty.  The  removal  to 
London  was,  in  this  respect,  a  double  deprivation.  He 
had  left  all  his  own  books  behind,  and  found  nothing 
which  could  replace  to  him  the  libraries  of  the  king,  and 
of  de  Thou.  Indeed  Bill,  the  king's  stationer,  had  a 
general  order  to  supply  him  with  the  books  he  required 
for  his  work  on  Baronius.  But  Bill  was  himself  very 
poorly  supplied  with  books  from  abroad.  Even  a  book 
published  in  Oxford  ^  was  not  procurable  in  the  London 

'  Adversaria,  torn.  7  :  '  Non  minima  studiorum  nostrorum  infelicitas  hasc, 
quod  hactenus  inter  homines  viximus,  qui  libros  ad  lisec  studia  necessarios  non 
multum  curarunt.  itaque  quoscunque  fere  legimus,  veteres  scriptores  sere  ndstro 
nobis  parare  sumus  coacti.' 

^  It  would  seem  from  this  that  the  Aldine  .ffisop,  1505,  which  contains  the 
greek  text  of  Palaephatus,  '  De  incredibilibus  '  etc.,  was  even  then  a  rare  book, 
as  it  is  now  among  the  scarcest  of  the  Aldines.  [Palaephatus  was  also  to  be 
found  in  the  Basel  edition  (1543)  of  Cornutus  De  Nat.  Deorum.] 

2  Ep.  964 :  '  Nunc  in  urbe  ejus  exemplum  non  inveni  apud  librarios,  quia  est 
editus  Oxonii.' 

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362  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

shops,  SO  ill  was  the  book-trade  organized  in  England.  If 
this  was  the  case  with  new  books,  it  was  still  more  with 
old  books.  Thomas  Savile  mentions  ^  that  he  could  not 
get  a  copy  of  the  'Notitia'  at  the  booksellers  either  in 
Oxford  or  London.  Casaubon  had  occasional  access  to 
Cotton's  Library,  a  collection  rich  in^  chronicles  and 
antiquarian  books,  but  not  either  classical  or  patristic.  He 
therefore  entered  the  Bodleian,  a  man  with  a  vigorous 
appetite,  who  has  been  for  some  time  on  short  rations. 
He  threw  himself  greedily  upon  the  stores  thus  opened  to 
him,  and  in  the  twelve  days  over  which  his  visits  to  the 
library  extended,  he  made  the  best  of  his  time. 

His  name  was  entered  upon  the  register  of  readers  as  of 
Christ  Church  ^,  though  he  had  refused  the  degree  which 
would  have  entitled  him  to  call  for  any  book  as  matter  of 
right.  He  must  have  read  as  a  stranger,  introduced  by 
the  dean  of  Christ  Church.  His  particular  enquiry  was 
for  such  books  as  were  unattainable  in  London.  We 
must  not  think  of  the  Bodleian  then  as  the  magnificent 
collection  which  it  has  since  become,  but  as  in  its  first 
infancy,  before  even  the  Selden  was  aggregated  to  it.  Of 
greek  mss.  in  which  it  is  now  rich,  it  possessed,  at  that 
time,  very  few.  Yet  few  as  they  were,  the  demand  for 
them  was  less.  Holstenius,  who  was  there  in  1622,  writes 
to  Meursius  *,  that  '  he  had  buried  himself  in  the  Oxford 
libraries,  turning  over  greek  and  latin  mss,  which  no  one 
in  those  parts  thinks  of  troubling.'  After  the  wealth  of 
greek  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  in  the  united 
King's  and  Medicean  libraries  at  Paris,  the  Bodleian  must 
have  seemed  to  Casaubon  poverty  indeed  ^.    What  they 

'  Camdeni  Epp.  p.  9. 

''  Ep.  940 :  '  Legi  in  bibliotheca  Cottoniana  ejusdem  libros  De  vita  abbatura 
S.  Albani.' 

'  Registrum  S  de  actis  in  domo  congregationis  f".  440  b. 

'  Holstenii  epp.  p.  10  ;  '  Delitui  in  Oxoniensium  bibliothecis,  veteres  codices 
grsecos  latinosque  sedulo  excutiens,  quibus  nemo  istic  locorum  negotium 
facessit.'  °  Ep.  899  :  '  Nihil  ad  regias  opes.' 

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VIII.]  OXFORD   VISIT.     1 613.  ^6^ 

had  were  produced  for  him.  As  he  wanted  to  read,  not  to 
collate,  new  material  was  what  he  looked  out  for,  and  he 
fastened  on  the  Thesaurus  of  Nicetas  Choniates.  This 
was  not  the  valuable  Choniates  which  we  now  have,  which 
was  only  brought  from  Constantinople  by  sir  Thomas  Roe 
in  1628,  but  an  abridgment  or  series  of  extracts  from  the 
*  Thesaurus  '  which  had  been  made  for  cardinal  Pole.  The 
magnificence  of  the  paper  and  the  splendour  of  the  calli- 
graphy 1,  'the  largest  folio,  the  thickest  paper  he  ever  saw,' 
made  it  the  show  book  of  the  library.  But  Casaubon  was 
not  content  with  looking  at  it,  he  sate  down  to  read  it,  and 
read  it  through.  And  he  not  only  reads  it  through,  but 
makes  twenty-three  pages  of  extracts,  in  greek,  for  future 
use.  He  read  also  S.  Basil,  Commentary  on  Isaiah,  then 
inedited ;  Leo  a  Castro,  ditto ;  Ephrem  Syrus,  in  Gerard 
Voss'  translation ;  Juan  de  la  Puente,  a  book  by  him,  lately 
brought  out  of  Spain,  read,  and  seven  pages  of  extracts 
made,  mostly  in  Spanish.  Euthymius  Zigabenus,  whom  he 
had  read  in  Paris,  but  could  not  get  in  London,  he  found 
in  the  Bodleian ;  also  Suisseth,  '  a  long  sought  for  book ' 
(diu  optatum  librum).  The  first  two  volumes  of  the  new 
edition  of  the  Concilia^,  though  three  or  four  years  old, 
could  not  be  seen  in  London,  as  we  may  infer  from  the 
pains  taken  to  extract  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  in  fifteen 
pages  of  close  writing.  A  Euchologion  ^,  Osiander,  '  Har- 
monia  quatuor  evangeliorum ;  '  Lipsius  in  Suetonii  tres 
posteriores  libros,  Offenbaci  1610;  Wakefield,  'Syntagma 
de  Hebraeorum  codicum  interpretatione ; '  Laurentius 
Suslyga,  'hastily  looked  over,'  but  yielding  nevertheless 
thirteen  pages  of  extract;  Joh.  Ferus  'in  Acta  Aposto- 
lorum ;  '  another  anonymous  commentary  on  the  first  twelve 
chapters  of  the  Acts ;  Boethius,  'De  rebus  Scotiae ; '  Alvianus 


^  Adversaria,  28.  53  :  'In  maxima  et  crassissima  papyro,  quam  unquam  videre 
memini.' 
^  Romse,  ex  typographia  Vaticana,  torn.  i.  1608,  torn.  2.  1609. 
*  Venet.  1602. 


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364  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Pelagius,  '  De  planctu  ecclesiae ; '  Espencseus,  two  works  oiF 
his ;  Rainolds,  '  De  ecclesiae  romanae  idololatria ; '  all  these 
are  noticed  or  extracted  in  the  Adversaria.  But  there  were 
doubtless  other  things  of  which  no  mention  is  made  either 
in  the  diary,  or  in  the  Oxford  memoranda,  e.  g.  he  says  ^ 
that  the  tractate  '  De  coena  domini,'  which  is  included 
among  the  works  of  S.  Cyprian,  is  not  Cyprian's,  but  the 
work  of  some  middle-age  writer,  '  as  I  read  in  a  ms.  of  the 
library  at  Oxford  ^.'  After  six  hours'  reading  and  writing  at 
this  pace  in  the  library,  there  must  be  recreation.  This  he 
takes,  on  his  return  to  the  deanery,  by  more  reading,  but 
of  a  lighter  sort,  such  as  Wake's  '  Rex  Platonicus,'  or  by 
taking  lessons  in  rabbinical  hebrew  from  a  young  man  of 
that  persuasion  ^. 

It  is  sad,  but  not  surprising,  to  read  in  the  diary,  that  in 
the  second  week  of  this  regime,  as  he  was  ascending  the 
Bodleian  stairs,  he  was  seized  with  sudden  giddiness 
in  the  head. 

What  with  the  sermons,  and  the  disputations,  and  all 
this  reading  got  through,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  much 
time  left  to  be  given  to  mere  acquaintance.  It  would 
seem  that  the  working  academic  of  that  day  was  as  much 
burdened  with  official  engagements  as  now.  A  month 
later  we  find  Abbot  writing  *  that  he  is  so  driven  by  the 
business  of  commemoration,  that  he  hardly  has  time  to 
draw  breath,  much  less  to  write  letters.  What  intercourse 
Casaubon  had  with  the  leading  men  of  the  place  had  to  be 
got  during  the  meals.  Men  of  learning,  who  could 
venture  to  challenge  him  to  discourse  of  books,  were  but 
few.  Indeed,  it  is  an  error  to  imagine  that  such  have  been, 
at  any  time  in  our  university  annals,  numerous.  Casaubon 
only  found  three  men  whom  he  distinguishes  as  in  this 

'  Exerc.  in  Baron,  p.  515. 

"  '  Ut  legi  in  MS.  codice  illustris  bibliothecae  Oxoniensis.' 
'  [See  infra,  p.  368.] 

*  Burney  mss.  363,  p.  23 :  '  Comitialium  jam  negotiorum  ^stu  laborans,  ut  vix 
respirandi  tempus  habeam.' 

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VIII.J  OXFORD   VISIT.     1613.  ^3,6^ 

category :  Abbot,  Prideaux,  and  Kilbye.  Of  Abbot  we 
have  already  spoken.  Prideaux  (John)  was  rector  of 
Exeter,  who  afterwards  (1616)  succeeded  Abbot  as  regius 
professor  of  divinity.  He,  like  Abbot,  inclined  to  the  old 
puritan,  or  calvinistic,  party  in  the  university,  and  was  very 
obnoxious  to  the  young  arminian  set^  He  had  been 
engaged  by  the  bishops  to  answer  the  last  hbel  of 
Eudaemon-Joannes,  in  which  Casaubon  was  personally 
attacked,  and  some  correspondence  had  already  passed 
between  the  two  on  this  subject.  The  tendency  of  eng- 
lish  divines  just  at  this  time  was  to  disuse  latin  in  their 
books,  and  to  adopt  english.  Prideaux  was  one  of  the 
few  who  adhered  to  the  old-fashioned  latin,  and  owed 
his  selection  partly  to  this  circumstance,  as  it  was  neces- 
sary to  answer  the  Jesuits  in  the  language  in  which  they 
wrote. 

Casaubon  was  enjoying  in  the  fullest  measure  that 
flattering  homage  which  at  either  of  the  english  uni- 
versities is  ever  accorded  to  the  eminent  foreign  scholar. 
How  was  he  shocked,  when  the  rector  of  Exeter  came  up 
to  him,  and  enquired,  with  a  serious  air,  '  If  it  were  true 
that  his  father  had  been  hanged?'  Prideaux,  in  reading 
Eudsemon-Joannes '  'Answer  to  Casaubon,'  had  been 
puzzled  by  finding  repeated  allusions  to  a  rope^-  Casau- 
bon had  had  as  early  as  January  some  sheets  of  this 
pamphlet  sent  him  from  Germany.  He  had  looked  at 
them  hastily,  and  thrown  them  aside  ^  as  frivolous.  He 
had  not  even  noticed,    careful   reader   as  he  was,   the 

'  See  Montagu's  flippant  letter,  Cosin,  Correspond,  i.  p.  22 :  '  Prideaux  hath 
threatened  to  write  against  me.  Utinam.  But  I  think  he  distrusteth  himself  at 
his  pen.  For  he  saide  to  my  lord  of  Oxford,  that  though  I  were  a  good  scholer 
at  my  pen,  and  wrote  well,  yet  he  doubted  not  but  att  an  argument  he  could 
plunge  me.  The  man  thincketh  well  of  himself,  yet  if  k.  James  please,  I  dare 
look  him  in  the  face,  in  his  owne  scholes.' 

^  Resp.  ad  epist.  Is.  Casauboni,  p.  143 :  '  Quod  ut  tuo  te  fune  strangules 
ipsemet  scribis.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  966  :  '  Hodie  vidi  librum  Andreas  Eudaemonos  Johannis  adversus 
me,  futilem  sane.' 


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^66  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

allusions  of  which  Prideaux  spoke  ^.  He  could  only- 
conjecture  what  their  meaning  might  be.  Afterwards,  by 
the  aid  of  an  Antwerp  correspondent,  Sweertius,  he 
traced  to  the  Jesuit  college  in  that  city,  the  head  of  which 
was  Scribanius,  the  author  of  the  'Amphitheatrum,'  a  story 
that  his  father,  Arnold,  had  been  hanged.  The  calumny 
was  '  ben  trovato,'  and  wounded  Isaac  to  the  quick.  No 
possession  was  more  treasured  by  him  than  his  father's 
good  name,  and  the  memory  of  his  saintly  life  devoted  to 
the  cause  of  the  church,  through  the  days  of  terror.  He 
was  very  solicitous  that  this  lie  should  be  replied  to,  and 
after  his  return  to  London  he  furnished  Prideaux  with  that 
narrative  of  his  father's  last  moments,  which  has  been 
before  quoted  ^.  But  the  incident  threw  a  cloud  over  the 
bright  days  of  his  reception  at  Oxford,  which  was  further 
dimmed  by  another  adventure  of  a  different  kind. 

Of  the  three  men  whom  we  have  named  as  having 
specially  cultivated  Casaubon  during  his  visit,  Kilbye 
(Richard)  is  the  least  known.  His  intimacy  with  Cas- 
aubon was  probably  founded  on  their  common  hebrew 
tastes,  as,  besides  being  rector  of  Lincoln  College  (1590), 
Kilbye  had  also  lately  become  regius  professor  of  Hebrew 
(1610)  ^.  He  had  been  one  of  the  translators  of  the  bible — 
Oxford  company,  the  prophets — and  had  written,  but  not 
published,  a  commentary  on  Exodus,  * '  the  chief  part  of 
which  is  excerpted  from  the  monuments  of  rabbins  and 
Hebrew  interpreters.'  He  also  continued  Jean  Mercier's 
commentaries  on  Genesis,  '  and  would  have  printed  them, 
but  was  denied.'  Casaubon  was  intimately  lie  with  Josias 
Mercier,  the  son  of  the  author  of  the  book  in  which  Kilbye 

'  Ep.  896:  '  Antequam  te  convenirem  nihil  ejus  scivi.' 

'  See  above,  p.  26  ;  Prideaux,  Castigatio  cujusdam  circulatoris,  p.  224. 

^  [Richard  Kilbye  was  collated  to  the  prebend  of  Milton  Ecclesise  in  the 
Cathedral  Church  of  Lincoln  on  the  28th  September,  1601.  Hardy's  Le  Neve, 
ii.  188.  See  also  Macray,  '  Annals  of  the  Bodleian  '  p.  67,  and  Verneuil's 
'  Nomenclator '  there  quoted.] 

*  A.  Wood,  Athen.  Oxon.  2.  287. 

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VIII.]  OXFORD  VISIT.     1613.  367 

took  this  interest^,  and  had  himself  a  high  value  for  his 
commentary,  which  he  had  selected  in  1599  for  his 
morning  devotional  reading^.  Kilbye's  mss.  are  lost, 
but  from  five  letters  of  his  to  Casaubon,  and  from  a 
single  printed  sermon,  we  may  gather  thus  much  ^ ;  that 
he  was  a  man  of  some  reading  beyond  the  common.  His 
citations  are  from  books  not  read  by  every  one,  and  come 
in  aptly,  as  if  supplied  by  memory,  not  looked  up  for  the 
occasion.  An  allusion  to  S.  Cyprian,  even  in  a  short 
letter  *,  has  the  same  appearance  of  naturalness.  Further, 
that  he  was  pious  and  retiring ;  that  he  still  continued  ^ — 
he  was  fifty-three  at  the  time  of  Casaubon's  visit— to 
occupy  himself  with  hebrew  reading,  to  which  occupation 
may,  perhaps,  be  ascribed  the  neghgence,  and  even  in- 
correctness, of  his  latin.  At  his  lodgings  Casaubon  saw 
an  early  copy  of  Raphelengius'  Lexicon  Arabicum^,  the 
only  other  copy  in  England  being  the  bishop  of  Ely's'. 
Casaubon  could  not  get  one  for  himself  in  London. 
Kilbye  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  academical  professor  of 
his  time ;  with  some  reading,  but  without  learning  or  even 
the  conception  of  it  as  a  whole;  his  knowledge  and  his 
ideas  confined  within  the  narrow  circle  of  ecclesiastical 
interests  and  ecclesiastical  motive. 

It  was  under  the  sanction  of  the  professor  that  a  young 

'  Ephem.  p.  357  :  '  Magni  Merceri  doctissimus  filius.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  129 :  '  Cepi  Merceri  in  Jobum  scripta  legere,  facturus  deinceps 
hoc  matutinum  exordium  studiorum,  donee  omnia  illius  magni  viri  perlegero.' 

'  The  sermon  is  a  funeral  sermon  on  Dr.  Holland,  regius  professor  of 
divinity,  and  rector  of  Exeter,  preached  at  S.  Mary's,  March  26,  1612.  A  copy 
with  MS.  corrections  in  Kilbye's  own  hand,  is  in  the  Bodleian.  The  five  letters 
are  in  the  Burney  collection ;  MS.  364. 

*  Burney  MSS.  364.  323:  "^Deus  namque  providos  non  praecipites  amat,  ut 
scite  Ciprianus.' 

'  Burney  Mss.  364.  322 :  '  Multum  enim  fateor  me  eorum  (i.  e.  Judaeorum) 
scientia  delectari.' 

'  Published  1613.  This  copy  is  now  in  the  college  library,  to  which  Kilbye 
left  108  volumes  of  books,  hebrew  and  latin  ;  no  greek. 

'  Ep.  898 :  '  Ego  nullum  adhuc  exemplar  illius  lexici  potui  hie  nancisci.  duo 
tantum  hactenus  vidi  exemplaria,  unum  in  manibus  Eliensis,  alteram  Oxonii 
apud  professorem  hebraeum.' 

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368  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Hebrew,  who  went  by  the  name  of  Jacob  Barnet,  found 
occupation  and  a  Hvelihood  by  giving  instruction  in 
Hebrew  to  the  students.  He  was  in  favour  with  the 
authorities,  for  Casaubon  met  him  also  at  the  rector  of 
Exeter's.  Getting  into  conversation  with  him,  Casaubon 
was  not  only  struck  by  his  natural  capacity,  but  was  sur- 
prised to  find  so  young  a  man  not  only  a  thorough  master 
of  the  language,  but  deeply  read  in  the  books  of  his 
nation  ^.  '  The  vast  mass  of  talmudic  lore  he  possesses  in 
a  measure  far  beyond  what  I  have  ever  met  with  in  any  jew 
before ;  and,  rare  thing  in  a  jew,  he  knows  latin.'  The 
opportunity  was  too  good  to  be  lost,  and  Casaubon  imme- 
diately took  him  on  to  read  rabbinical  hebrew  with  him. 
Nor  did  he  stop  here.  When  on  Monday,  June  4,  he 
bade  farewell  to  the  university,  he  carried  off  Jacob  with 
him  to  London  in  his  own  hired  coach,  and  installed  him 
in  his  house.  Here  he  kept  him  as  his  inmate  for  a 
month.  He  found  profit  not  only  in  his  lessons,  but  in 
his  conversation.  Casaubon's  close  work,  however,  upon 
the  '  Exercitations  '  prevented  his  profiting  by  this  domest- 
ication at  any  other  time  than  at  meals  ^.  Though  the 
Jesuits  afterwards  pretended  that,  as  he  had  gotten  his 
theological  references  from  cardinal  Du  Perron,  so  Casau- 
bon had  his  hebrew  from  Jacob  the  Jew. 

He  soon  found  that  he  could  not  afford  the  burden  of 
an  additional  inmate '',  and  was  obliged  to  return  him  to 
Oxford.  Jacob  had  for  some  time  past  evinced  dispo- 
sitions towards  Christianity,  and  now  added  to  the  interest 
excited  by  his  rare  learning,  that  of  catechumen.  In  this 
capacity  Casaubon  sent  him  back,  fortified  with  letters  of 
recommendation  to  his  university  friends,  and  especially 
to  the  regius  professor  of  hebrew,  whose  special  protege 
he  was.    Casaubon  wrote  no  less  than  nine  letters  in  one 

'  Ep.  924 :  '  Literis  Judaicis  et  Thalmudicis  supra  fidem  doctus.' 

^  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  loi :  '  Rarissime  eos  coUocutos  nisi  inter  epulas.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  990  :  '  Nostris  semper  conatibus  obstat  res  angusta  domi.' 

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VIII.]  OXFORD  VISIT.     1613.  369 

day  on  his  behalf,  and  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of 
speaking  to  the  archbishop,  and  even  to  the  king  about 
him.    Abbot  wrote  himself  from  Croydon   to  the  vice- 
chancellor,  and  enjoined  Kilbye  to  undertake  in  person  the 
instruction  of  the  promising  convert^.     The   conversion 
became  the  topic  of  the  day  in  the  university.    All  the 
details  of  the  baptismal  ceremony  were  arranged  before- 
hand by  the  authorities  with  the  most  scrupulous  anxiety.' 
The  archbishop  ordered  a  sermon  to   be  preached,  the 
vice-chancellor  named  a  preacher. .    Twisse  of  New  col- 
lege, the  preacher,  prepared  his  sermon.    The  vice-chan- 
cellor was  to  administer  the  rite.     There  being  then  no 
form  of  adult  baptism  in  the  anglican  ritual,  and  no  pre- 
cedent being  known,  Casaubon  was  consulted  as  to  what 
should   be   done  ^,  and  the   archbishop   allowed    an    ex- 
tempore, or,  at  least,  an  occasional  prayer  to  be  used, — 
another  offence    to   the  rising  ritualist  party.     A  keen 
debate  arose  in  the  council  of  doctors,  heads,  and  proctors, 
as  to  the  fittest  time  for  the  ceremony.     Some,  thinking  of 
the  bird  in  hand,  wished  to  have   the  public  baptism  as 
part  of  the  entertainment  of  the  'Act'  (July  8).     Kilbye 
deprecated  haste,  and  demanded  to  have  the  long  vacation 
for  the  decent  instruction  of  the  neophyte.    The  convert 
himself  was  impatient  to  make  his  confession,  but  Kilbye 
moderated  his  ardour.     Kilbye's  opinion  finally  prevailed, 
and  Michaelmas  day  was  fixed  for  the  edifying  spectacle. 
In  September,  Kilbye  reported  to  Casaubon  that  all  was 
going  on  well,  that  his  pupil  promised  excellently^,  and 
that  '  he  hoped  he  would  turn  out  a  second  James,  and 
faithful  disciple  of  Christ.' 

1  Burney  mss.  364.  p.  323  ;  Kilbye  to  Casaubon,  July  13,  1613 :  '  lUustrissimus 
archiepiscopus  banc  provinciara  mihi  dedit  ut  ilium  instruam  in  articulis  fidei,  et 
misteriis  Christianas  religionis.' 

^  Ibid.  p.  326 :  '  Si  aliquem  Judaeum  baptisatum  videris,  ore  ut  caerimonias 
quas  vel  ipse  videris,  vel  ab  aliis  intellexeris.  Uteris  tuis  denunties.' 

'  Ibid.  364.  p.  326 :  '  Optime  spero  de  Jacobo  quod  futurus  sit  alter  Jacobus 
Christi  discipulus  fidelis.' 

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37° 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


Michaelmas  approached,  and  all  was  ready— all  except 
the  chief  actor.  The  day  before  the  ceremony  was  to 
come  off,  Jacob  had  decamped.  The  heads  were  furious 
at  having  been  duped ;  the  proctors'  emissaries  were  sent 
out,  horse  and  foot,  to  scour  the  country.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  capturing,  without  regard  to  the  limits  of  their 
jurisdiction,  the  fugitive  on  the  road  to  London.  The 
vice-chancellor  committed  him  to  gaol, — for  what  offence 
is  not  clear— as  even  Casaubon  ventured  '^  to  surmise  that 
to  decline  baptism  is  not  a  misdemeanour  by  the  law  of 
England.  However,  they  kept  him  locked  up  in  Bocardo, 
a  miserable  hole,  where  he  was  like  to  have  died  of  filth 
and  starvation  2-  The  rector  of  Lincoln,  who  was  most 
compromised,  was  most  indignant.  He  played  with  his 
victim,  as  a  cat  with  its  mouse,  having  him  out  of  his  hole 
every  now  and  then  to  remonstrate  with  him  on  the 
wickedness  of  his  conduct,  but  not  paying  any  attention 
to  his  renewed  offers  of  abjuration  ^ 

Casaubon  was  also  deeply  mortified  at  the  part  he  had 
been  made  to  play  in  the  comedy.  It  threw  a  cloud  upon 
what  was  otherwise  a  most  gratifying  visit.  He  was 
naturally  very  indignant.  But  when  he  heard  of  his 
suffering  in  his  confinement,  and  that  some  of  the  doctors 
were  bent  upon  having  him  further  punished,  he  forgot 
the  affront*  in  his  sympathy  with  learning,  and  exerted 
himself  both  with  the  archbishop  and  the  king  to  procure 
his  release.  This  was  not  effected  till  December,  but 
Jacob  was  banished  the  university  precincts.     ^ '  It  will 


'  Ep.  924 :  '  Nam  quod  nolit  fieri  christianus,  crimen  legibus  puniendum, 
opinor,  hoc  non  est ;  sed  tantum  quod  simulaverit.' 

^  Ibid. .  '  Periculum  esse,  ne  homo  infelix  fame  et  paedore  pereat  in  illo  duro 
carcere.' 

^  Burney  mss.  364.  327 :  '  Ssepe  famulum  meum  mitto,  ut  ilium  ad  me  adducat, 
et  postea  reducat.' 

'  Ep.  924  :  '  Etsi  detestor  ilHus  perfidiam,  non  possum  tamen  non  aliqua  ejus 
tangi  commiseratione  propter  excellentem  ipsius  doctrinam.' 

'  Burney  mss.  364.  322. 


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VIII.]  OXFORD  VISIT.     1613.  371 

be  long,'  writes  Kilbye,  '  before  another  jew  of  such  attain- 
ments comes  among  us.  Had  he  but  put  on  Christ,  what 
an  aid  he  might  have  been  to  hebrew  studies  in  this  place ! 
It  is  quite  impossible  for  any  one  ever  to  understand  the 
hebrew  doctors  by  his  own  unassisted  efforts,  unless  he 
has  been  first  initiated  by  one  of  that  nation.'  The  only 
one  who  came  well  out  of  the  affair  was  Twisse,  the 
preacher  on  Michaelmas  day.  Finding  his  prepared  dis- 
course balked,  he  delivered  one,  at  a  few  hours'  notice,  on 
Jewish  perfidy,  which  was  highly  relished,  at  least  by  the 
calvinistic  party,  to  which  Twisse  belonged.  Either  for 
his  sermons,  or  for  his  german  descent^,  he  was  no- 
minated, in  1614,  chaplain  to  the  princess  Elizabeth,  and 
went  with  her  to  Heidelberg  ^- 

The  glimpse  we  get  of  the  interior  of  the  university  of 
Oxford  during  Casaubon's  visit,  transient  as  it  is,  is  yet 
one  of  the  most  intimate  which  chance  has  transmitted  to 
us  from  that  age,  prior  to  the  time  of  Anthony  Wood. 
It  shows  us,  in  clear  relief,  the  old  and  well-established 
features  of  the  place,  a  character  which  was  imprinted  on 
it  before  the  reformation,  and  which  belongs  to  it  still,  in 
spite  of  many  superficial  changes,  as  it  did  in  the  time  of 
James  i.  We  find  a  school  where  much  activity  prevails 
in  the  routine  instruction,  and  where  the  time  and  force  of 
the  resident  instructors  is  much  consumed  in  the  for- 
malities  of  official  duty,   and  the   management  of  their 


'  A.  Wood,  Athenee  Oxon.  3. 170  ;  '  Twisse  was  "  natione  Teutonicus,  fortuna 
Batavus,  religione  calvinista."' 

^  Vanini's  Amphitheatrum,  published  1615,  gives  a  later  glimpse  of  Jacob  the 
Jew.  '  Fuit  quidam  temporibus  meis  ludseus  in  Anglia,  ut  Christi  fidem 
susciperet,  et  ab  Oxoniensi  Academia  perhumaniter  fuit  exceptus ;  cum  vero  ad 
sacrum  lavacrum  deducendus  esset,  aufugit,  captus  est.  Rex  ex  benignitate 
dimisit.  Oifendi  eum  aliquo  tempore  post  Lutetise  Parisiorum  in  aula  regia,  ubi 
in  sermone  mutuo  quem  duximus,  Anglorum  avaritiam  mirum  in  modum 
sugillabat,  ut  tum  prae  cseteris  nationibus  vel  maxime  dediti  sint  uni  liberalitati, 
illamque  quibuscunque  possunt  rationibus  erga  extraneos  ostendant,  praecipue 
vero  in  ipsum  Hebrseum,  quem  per  duo  annos  magnificis  impensis  aluerunt,  ut 
Christianam  religionem  amplecteretur.'     Amphith.  p.  65. 

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37a  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

affairs.  Of  any  special  interest  in  science,  learning,  or 
the  highest  culture,  there  is  no  trace.  The  conception 
of  classical  learning  as  Casaubon  conceived,  and  at- 
tempted to  realize  it,  was  unknown.  What  science  there 
was  in  England  was  in  an  attitude  of  hostility.  Neither 
Selden  nor  Bacon  was  ever  a  fellow  of  a  college.  The 
great  marking  fact  of  the  university,  within,  was  the  an- 
tagonism of  the  two  church  parties — the  puritan-calvinistic 
party  in  present  possession  ;  the  arminian-ritualistic  rising 
by  aggressive  acts  and  words ;  S.  Mary's  pulpit  the  arena, 
the  sermons  the  event  of  the  week.  The  ecclesiastical 
interest  absorbs  or  overwhelms  every  other.  Outside, 
the  whole  institution  is  regarded  by  the  government  as 
an  instrument  of  party,  to  be  supported,  and  to  be  used, 
against  the  two  oppositions,  the  catholic,  and  the  puritan. 
The  professors  and  governors  are  all  clerics,  who  look  for 
their  provision  and  promotion  in  the  church,  from  the 
government  and  the  bishops,  and  endeavour  to  qualify 
themselves  for  it  by  writing  pamphlets  and  preaching 
against  popery  and  puritanism.  The  university  thus  shows 
itself  as  an  intimate  member  and  organ  of  the  national 
life  ;  taking  its  full  share  in  all  the  party  feeling,  passion, 
prejudice,  religious  sentiment,  which  were  current  in  the 
English  nation,  but  wholly  destitute  of  any  power  to 
vivify,  to  correct,  to  instruct,  to  enlighten. 


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IX. 

LONDON. 
1610-^1614. 

On  Monday  June  4  (May  24,  o.  s.),  Casaubon,  taking 
Jacob  with  him,  left  Oxford,  and  staying  the  night  with 
sir  Henry  Savile  at  Eton,  reached  London  on  Tuesday. 
He  returned  to  the  work  over  which  he  was  now  killing 
himself,  and  to  cares  and  vexations  ^ '  to  which  I  am  now 
no  longer  equal,'  he  writes  in  August  to  Heinsius.  The 
^ '  island  of  the  blessed,'  as  it  had  seemed  to  him  at  first, 
began  to  disclose  features  common  to  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

The  first  cause  of  discomfort  grew  out  of  the  work  on 
which  he  was  engaged. 

At  the  end  of  1612,  he  had  written  out  fair  a  specimen 
section  of  his  '  Exercitationes,'  and  sent  it  to  the  archbishop 
for  revision  or  approval.  Nor  was  the  archbishop  the 
only  person  to  whom  he  had  shown  portions.  One  friend 
in  particular,  whom  he  will  not  name  ^,  had  the  sheets  for 
correction.  This  friend,  who  was  perhaps  the  bishop  of 
Ely,  neither  returned  them,  nor  yet  read  them.  Casaubon 
repeatedly  asked  to  have  them  back ;  sent  Wedderburn  to 
fetch  them;  in  vain.  He  suspected  that  they  had  been 
lent  by  the  person  in  question  to  some  one  else,  and  could 
not  be  got  back.    This  suspicion  was  founded  upon  a  fact 

'  Ep.  913. 

'  Ep.  703 :  '  De  meo  in  hanc  /ja/so/jwc  i/^ffoi/  adventu,  puto,  audivisti,'  to 
Heinsius,  January,  1611. 

^  Ephem.  p.  968 :  '  Chartas  meas  Baronianas  dedi  recensendas  cuidam  amico, 
viro  probo,  optimo  et  longe  doctissimo.' 

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374  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

which  had  come  to  light  a  little  before,  December  1612. 
Abraham  Scultetus,  chaplain  to  the  elector  Palatine,  who 
was  now  residing  in  London,  informed  him  that  a  ms.  had 
been  received,  by  a  London  bookseller,  of  a  critique  on 
Baronius  by  an  english  divine.  It  was  going  to  be  pub- 
lished immediately.  Scultetus  was  able  to  get  the  sheets 
for  Casaubon's  inspection.  His  surprise  may  be  imagined 
when  he  recognised,  as  he  believed,  his  own  plan.  The 
arrangement  of  the  EngHshman's  book,  which,  like  his  own, 
was  in  latin,  the  order  of  topics,  were  the  same.  The  same 
errors  of  Baronius  were  corrected,  the  same  passages  of 
authors  were  cited.  He  afterwards  discovered  that  the 
friend  whom  he  had  trusted  had  not  betrayed  him.  The 
detention  of  his  copy  was  due  solely  to  delay  in  reading  it 
over.  The  friend  had  read  it  with  care,  and  returned  it 
with  remarks  evincing  much  knowledge  ^.  The  copy  had 
never  been  out  of  his  keeping.  But  other  persons  had 
seen  portions,  and  Casaubon  had  talked  unreservedly  of 
the  plan  and  topics  of  the  book  on  which  his  whole  energy 
was  now  expended.  Indeed,  it  was  probable  that  the 
plagiarist  had  profited  by  his  talk,  rather  than  by  any 
furtive  copy.  For  on  closer  inspection,  notwithstanding 
many  coincidences,  the  details  of  the  Englishman's  book 
were  found  to  differ  widely  from  those  of  Casaubon's, 
though  the  plan  was  stolen.  Casaubon  tells  de  Thou^ 
that  the  English  author  'is  really  learned,  but  my  own 
footing,  as  the  older  student,  is  perhaps  rather  firmer.' 
A  more  modest  self-appreciation  was  never  uttered.  For 
it  can  scarce  be  doubted,  that  we  have  in  a  book  published 
in  London  ten  years  afterwards,  1622,  'Analecta  eccle- 
siasticarum  exercitationum,'  the  material  of  the  book  which 
Scultetus  detected,  and  brought  to  Casaubon.  We  have 
therefore  in  our  hands  the  means  of  comparison.     Pro- 

^  Ephem.  p.  968  :  '  Optimi  viri . . .  integritatem  cum  summa  doctrina  perspexi.' 
''  Ep.  848  :  '  Est  ille  quidem  vir  doctus,  sed  nos  annis  graves  fortius  pedem 
figimus.' 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  375 

bably  no  one  will  ever  care  to  institute  it.  Yet  it  is  not 
uninstructive.  It  gives  us  a  clear  notion  of  the  wide  differ- 
ence between  a  master  of  ancient  learning,  and  a  clever 
university-bred  scholar,  who  holds  a  brief,  and  can 
accumulate  passages  of  ancient  authors  in  support  of 
*  a  view.' 

Casaubon  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  the  writer  of 
the  sheets  was  Richard  Montagu,  a  young  fellow  of  Eton, 
who  was  now  on  his  preferment,  and  was  reading  the 
fathers  accordingly.  It  was  quite  clear,  then,  by  what 
hand  this  stone  had  been  launched.  Montagu  was  a 
protege  of  Savile,  who  had  brought  him  to  Eton  to  assist 
him  upon  the  Chrysostom.  As  Savile  thought  himself 
a  better  man  than  Scaliger,  Montagu  was  at  least  a  Cas- 
aubon. The  set  were  indignant  that  the  foreigner  should 
reap  the  credit  that  was  to  be  got  by  refuting  Baronius. 
The  native  jealousy  was  piqued  by  the  expectation  with 
which  the  public,  at  home  and  abroad,  were  looking  for 
Casaubon's  book^  They  would  show  that  there  were 
learned  men  in  England.  This  was  the  cause  they  alleged 
for  the  secrecy  of  their  manoeuvre;  the  fear  'that  those 
foreigners  should  steal  from  the  books  of  Englishmen^.' 
The  archbishop,  however,  interfered.  It  would  cause 
scandal  to  attempt  to  forestal  a  book  on  which  Casaubon 
had  been  publicly,  nay  officially,  engaged.  He  compelled 
Montagu  to  suppress  his  book.  In  1622,  when  Abbot 
was  in  disgrace  and  powerless,  and  Casaubon  had  long 
been  dead,  Montagu  published  his  materials.  He  may 
have  become  ashamed  of  his  sharp  practice,  as  he  asserts 
in  his  preface ^  'that  his  collection  had  not  been  made 

1  Burney  MSS.  366.  p.  164.  In  September,  1613,  Scultetus  writes  from 
Heidelberg,  '  Equidem  confirmo  tibi  a  multis  annis  nullum  opus  tanta  cum 
aviditate  expectatum  fuisse,  quanta  hocce  tuum.' 

'^  Ep.  848:  'Ne  isti  peregrini  ex  Anglorum  scriptis  proficiant.  Haec  fuere 
verba  magni  cujusdam  viri  (i.  e.  Savile).' 

^  Prsef.  in  Analecta :  '  Non  in  ilium  finem  ut  in  vulgus  aliquando  et  hominum 
conspectum  emanarent.' 

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376  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

with  any  view  to  publication.'  Montagu  was  a  clever  and 
spirited  writer,  and  was  ready  to  answer  anybody  on  any 
subject.  He  undertook  to  'answer'  Selden's  '  History  of 
Tithes.'  He  wrote  so  well  that  the  high  church  party, 
and  Anthony  Wood,  thought  ^  he  had  demoHshed  Selden, 
to  whom  he  stood  in  the  relation  in  which  Boyle  did  to 
Bentley.  But  if  Montagu,  in  1622,  was  ashamed  of  his 
baffled  trick,  he  was  not  the  less  bitter  against  Casaubon. 
The  '  Analecta '  affect  to  defend  Casaubon  against  his  later 
critics,  Rosweyd  and  Bulenger.  Under  the  cloak  of 
deference  to  the  '  vir  doctissimus,'  we  find  a  running  fire 
of  carping  correction  of  Casaubon's  '  Exercitationes ' 
maintained.  The  animus  of  the  Savilian  circle  is  still  there, 
though  Casaubon  has  been  dead  eight  years.  Indeed, 
Savile  himself  can  hardly  speak  of  Casaubon  with  patience. 
In  a  letter  to  sir  Dudley  Carleton ''',  undated,  but  after  Cas- 
aubon's death,  he  writes,  'Among  your  advertisements 
from  Mr.  Stade,  for  all  reall  defalts  in  the  copyes,  he  may 
supply  them  out  of  another  copy  there,  and  upon 
knowledge  had  what  they  are,  they  shal  be  supplyed  from 
here  (for  a  small  tear  in  a  leafe,  hee  is  too  nice).  The 
"  Thesaurus  "  he  mentions,  Mr.  Casaubon  tooke  that  worke 
out  of  my  handes  above  two  yeares  before  his  death.  To 
whom,  as  best  able  to  performe  it,  both  for  his  learning 
and  experience  that  way,  and  for  his  ability  of  body,  I 
yeelded,  and  so  from  him  hee  must  fetch  it,  I  feare,  yf  hee 
will  have  it.'  When  the  reader  comes  presently  to  the 
physician's  account  of  Casaubon's  wasted  appearance  for 
some  years  before  his  death,  he  will  be  able  to  appreciate 
the  cruel  sarcasm  of  the  words  '  for  his  ability  of  body.' 

Nor  was  the  jealousy  of  the  scholars  whose  reputation 
was  thrown   into  the  shade  by  Casaubon's  presence  in 

'  A.  Wood,  Athenas  Oxon.  3.  370 :  '  He  (Selden)  was  so  effectually  an- 
swered by  Tillesley  of  Oxon,  Richard  Montagu  and  Stephen  Nettles  of 
Cambridge,  that  he  never  came  off  in  any  of  his  undertakings  with  more  loss  of 
credit.' 

'  State  paper  office,  Domestic,  James  i,  vol.  9a.  no.  95. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  377 

England,  the  only  source  of  ill  will.  He  began,  after 
a  time,  to  meet  with  cold  looks  in  the  social  circle  even 
from  those  whom  he  had  best  right  to  think  his  friends. 
'  I  cannot  make  out  these  English ; '  he  writes  to  de  Thou 
in  November  1612,  'those  of  them  with  whom  I  was 
acquainted  before  my  coming  over,  seem  now  not  to  know 
me.  Not  one  of  them  ever  speaks  to  me,  or  even  answers 
if  I  speak  to  him.  The  reason  of  it  is  a  mystery  to  me  ^.' 
Hallam,  commenting  on  this  passage  ^,  supposes  Casaubon 
'to  have  become  generally  unpopular.'  But  this  was  by 
no  means  the  case.  With  the  king  he  continued  to  the 
last  as  much  a  favourite  as  at  the  beginning.  He  was  sent 
for  as  often,  and  detained  as  long  in  talk,  which  sometimes 
became  very  confidential.  One  of  the  most  notable 
instances  in  the  diary  occurs  as  late  as  June  i,  1614,  little 
more  than  a  fortnight  before  his  death  ;  when  he  records  : 
'  Whitsunday ;  but  had  to  go  to  the  king,  from  whom  I 
heard  things  which  surprised  me  much,  which  His  Majesty 
communicated  to  me  in  private''-  I  am  reminded  of 
Juvenal's  "  Ad  generum  Cereris, "  etc.,  and  the  Sicilian 
vespers,  but  these  things  must  be  kept  a  dead  secret.' 
The  explanation  of  the  mystery  is  to  be  found  in  Hoskyns' 
speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  few  days  before*,  in 
which  he  said,  as  reported  by  Chamberlain ;  '  Hoskyns, 
forsooth,  must  have  his  oar  in  the  boat,  and  tell  them  that 
wise  princes  put  away  strangers,  as  Canute,  when  he 
meant  to  plant  himself  here,  sent  back  his  Danes,  and  the 
Palsgrave  had  lately  dismissed  all  the  English  that  were 
about  the  lady  Elizabeth,  and  withal,  to  what  purpose  he 
knew  best,  put  them  in  mind  of  Vesperae  Sicilianae.'  The 
bishops  continued  throughout  no  less  friendly.      He  was 

'  Ep.  241 :    '  Nemo  illorum  me  vel  verbulo  appellat,  appellatus  silet.     Hoc 
quid  rei  sit,  non  scic' 

*  Hist,  of  Lit.  2.  311,  11. 

*  Ephem.  p.  1063 :  '  A  quo  mira  didici  quae  mihi  kot'  iliav  Rex  serenissimus 
et  optimus  narravit.    meminero  versus  illius,'  etc. 

*  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  ap.  Birch,  i.  321. 

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378  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

as  much  visited  and  invited  as  he  desired — nay  more  than 
suited  with  his  intense  passion  for  work.  He  is  frequently 
receiving  substantial  presents  from  them,  at  other  times 
besides  Christmas.  In  May  1612,  the  bishop  of  London, 
King,  sends  Madame  Casaubon  'a  little  remembrance,' 
with  an  apology  for  not  having  called  during  his  being  in 
London,  and  adding  a  hope  that  he  will  '  pay  him  a  visit  at 
Fulham  ^,  four  miles  beyond  Westminster.'  In  November 
of  the  same  year,  the  king  and  the  archbishop  were  god- 
fathers, by  proxy,  to  his  english  son,  James.  The  bishops 
of  Bath  (Montagu),  and  Lichfield  (Overall),  and  lady 
Carew,  were  present.  Morton,  dean  of  Winchester,  sends 
him  presents,  invites  him  to  dine  (April  1613),  and  in  the 
words  of  Morton's  biographer^,  'this  love  thus  begun 
between  Morton  and  Casaubon  was  never  intermitted  in 
their  lives,  nor  obliterated  by  death.' 

In  the  very  letter  ^  in  which  Casaubon  makes  this  com- 
plaint of  the  English,  he  speaks  of  visiting  Camden  :  of  sir 
Robert  Cotton  '  the  best  of  men,  a  candid  soul,  a  true  noble- 
man' (vir  optimus,  candidissimus,  et  vere  nobilissimus), 
with  whom  he  has  often  talked  of  de  Thou's  '  History.' 
Yet  we  have  seen  *  that  he  did  not  make  friends  among 
the  antiquaries,  or  the  wits.  He  was  less  likely  to  make 
them  among  the  courtiers.  If  any  class  of  persons  be  meant 
in  his  words  to  de  Thou,  it  must  be  the  place-hunters  who 
infested  James'  court.  He  was  much  thrown  in  their 
way,  and  they  must  have  envied  his  frequent  closetings 
with  James,  opportunities  which  they  would  have  known 
how  to  turn  to  account.  Unable  to  speak  english,  his 
intercourse  was  necessarily  confined  to  those  who  were 
willing  to  communicate  with  him  in  french  or  latin; 
french,  which  the  average  Englishman  speaks  indifferently 
and  reluctantly ;  latin,  in  which  the  painful  effort  to  follow 
Casaubon's  foreign  pronunciation  was  naturally  shirked. 

1  Burney  MSS.  364.  p.  367.  ''  Barwick,  Life  of  Bp.  Moreton,  p.  72, 

^  Ep.  841.  '  See  above,  p.  297. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  379 

Disinclination  to  talk  to  the  solemn  calvinist,  whose  dress 
and  manners  bore  the  obnoxious  stamp  of  Geneva,  would 
be  strongest  among  the  fashionable  set,  the  waiters  on 
providence,  with  which  the  court  of  James  i.  was  more 
than  ordinarily  beset.  The  preferment  hunter  is  always 
discontented;  having  no  self-respect,  he  has  no  appre- 
ciation. One  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  this  class  was 
one  whom  Casaubon  might  have  with  reason  expected  to 
befriend  him.  And  it  is  probable  that  though  Casaubon 
makes  his  complaint  a  general  one,  by  the  plural  phrase 
^ '  all  those  I  have  known  before,'  he  intends  a  single 
individual,  whose  behaviour  particularly  mortified  him. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  sir  Henry  Wotton,  when  at 
Geneva  in  1592,  had  lodged  in  Casaubon's  house  ^,  '  to 
his  very  great  contentment.'  Their  friendship,  thus 
begun,  surs'ived  Wotton's  remissness  in  his  money  trans- 
actions, which  had  given  Casaubon  so  much  trouble. 
Since  then  they  had  corresponded,  and  in  most  affec- 
tionate terms,  for  some  years.  In  1601,  Wotton  undertakes 
to  write  every  week  from  Florence,  and  in  greek,  for 
which  Casaubon  had  inspired  him  with  an  enthusiasm  ^. 
He  would  dedicate  to  Isaac  Casaubon  one  of  the  many 
books  which  he  was  always  going  to  write,  and  never  did 
write.  June  20,  1602,  he  is  back  at  Florence  after  a  long 
absence  in  Germany*.  'He  recalls,  and  would  fain  ask 
heaven  to  give  him  again,  those  days  in  which  they 
watched  the  setting  sun  together.'  His  book,  which  he 
is  going  to  write,  is  '  On  Fate,'  and  is  to  be  in  greek,  and 
to  be  dedicated  to  Casaubon.     Nothing  delays  its  publica- 


'  Ep.  841  :  '  Quoscunque  habui  notos.' 

^  See  above,  p.  40. 

'  Burney  mss.  366  :  '  Te  praelucente  versabor  inter  incorrupt!  aevi  auctores.' 

*  Burney  mss.  367.  p.  75  ;  '  Saepe  repeto  illos  dies  at  reposco  in  quibus,  ut 
tuis  verbis  utar,  solera  una  condebamus.'  This  letter  is  not  signed,  and  is 
ascribed  in  the  catalogue  of  Burney  MSS.  though  with  a  ?,  to  Campanella.  It  is 
in  sir  H.  W^otton's  hand,  and  is  his  reply  to  Cas.  ep.  1021.  Casaubon's  reply  to 
Wotton,  at  Florence,  is  Cas.  ep.  292,  dat.  Lutet.  12  kal.  Sext.  1602. 


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380  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sec*. 

tion,  but  the  expectation,  which  has  been  raised  by  a 
certain  friend  at  Venice,  of  having  a  complete  Hierocles 
'  On  Fore-knowledge  and  Necessity.'  He  knows  the 
excerpts  in  Photius,  but  '  in  a  matter  of  such  importance 
he  is  not  satisfied  with  extracts.'  Casaubon  ^  replies  in 
the  same  tender  tone,  'Ah!  what  days  those  were  !  when 
heedless  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour  we  passed  whole 
nights  in  lettered  talk !  I  hanging  on  your  stories  of  all 
you  had  seen  of  many  men  and  many  lands  ;  you  pleased 
to  hear  somewhat  of  my  desultory  readings  !  Oh  !  that 
was  life  worth  living !  pure  happiness !  I  cannot  recall 
those  times  without  groaning  in  spirit.' 

So  wrote  Casaubon  in  1602.  Wotton  forgot  his 
promise  of  the  weekly  greek  letter,  and  did  not  write  the 
book  ^.  Before  he  left  Italy  a  change  had  come  over  his 
sentiments  towards  Casaubon.  In  1610  he  writes  to 
Hoeschel  at  Augsburg  2,  expressing  himself  as  disgusted 
with  the  courtly  strain  of  compliment  in  the  preface  to 
the  Polybius*.  In  February,  161 1,  Wotton  returned  from 
Venice.  Casaubon  expected  to  welcome  a  friend.  But 
he  was  disappointed.  Sir  Henry,  a  younger  son,  with  no 
patrimony  and  expensive  tastes,  had  commenced  the  career 
of  place-hunting,  and  was  now  too  fine  a  gentleman  to 
be  seen  talking  with  an  old  pedant.  Signor  Fabritio 
(Wotton's  nickname)  swaggered  it  about  the  king  ^ '  with 
his  pictures  and  projects,'  but  was  not  at  home  to 
Casaubon,  who  became  shy  of  paying  visits  which  were 

'  Ep.  292. 

^  Hannah,  Poems  of  Wotton  and  Raleigh,  p.  xiv :  '  Though  he  sometimes 
amused  himself  with  looking  after  printers,  he  seldom  committed  anything  to 
press.' 

'  Heumann,  Poecile,  i.  582 :  '  O  quam  multis  displicet  ilia  nuncupatoria 
epistola !  quae  profecto  non  critici  est  sed  aulici.' 

*  Chamberlain  writes,  March  3,  1614,  Birch,  1.301:  'Touching  the  Fabri- 
cians,  it  skills  not  what  they  say  or  write,  for  they  stand  but  aloof,  and  are  of 
the  most  that  know  least ;  and  surely  their  employments  go  but  slowly  forward, 
and  is  more  but  an  even  wager  whether  either  of  them,  for  all  their  forwardness, 
shall  enjoy  the  place  they  pretend.' 

°   Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Aug.  11,  1612. 

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JX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  381 

evidently  unacceptable.  At  the  request  of  de  Thou, 
however,  Casaubon  wrote  to  Wotton  to  ask  for  a  memoir 
on  the  Venetian  quarrel,  which  Fra  Paolo  had  entrusted 
to  Wotton  for  de  Thou's  special  use  in  his  '  History.' 
Wotton  vouchsafed  no  answer.  After  repeated  appli- 
cations, he  at  last  said  ^ '  that  he  was  writing  on  the 
subject  himself,  and  should  retain  the  memoir  for  his  own 
use.'   , 

Casaubon  himself  writes  indeed  in  one  place  ^,  as  if  the 
bishops  of  Ely  and  Lichfield,  Andrewes  and  Overall,  were 
his  '  only  english  friends.'  But  this  must  be  understood 
of  close  and  constant  intimacy.  For  it  is  evident  that 
Morton,  Barclay,  and  others  whose  names  occur  in  our 
narrative,  were  attached  to  him.  And  intimacy  is  of  slow 
growth  for  a  man  of  fifty,  who  is  also  a  close  student. 
Of  acquaintance  less  than  intimate,  he  had,  as  the  diary 
testifies,  more  rather  than  less  than  we  should  have  ex- 
pected from  a  man  of  his  habits,  who  could  not  speak  the 
language  of  the  country.  It  was  true  that  he  had  taken 
his  side  with  a  party,  and  he  had  to  take  the  consequences 
of  his  position.  In  this  respect  emigration  had  been  a 
change  for  the  worse.  In  Paris  he  had  belonged  to  the 
downtrodden  party  of  the  huguenots,  whose  lives  were 
held  on  sufferance  from  the  street  mob.  But  he  had 
enjoyed  the  exceptional  encouragement  and  protection 
of  the  court.  In  coming  to  England  he  attached  himself 
'to  the  dominant  party.  But  government,  even  in  the  time 
of  James  i,  was  government  by  a  party.  Those  who 
shared  its  favours  had  to  share  also  its  unpopularity. 
Coming  over  to  this  country  at  the  invitation  of  the  king 
and  the  bishops,  Casaubon  might  imagine  at  first  that 
he  was  the  adopted  guest  of  the  nation.  He  found  him- 
self only  the  favourite  of  the  church  party.  The  zeal  of 
the  puritans  saw  in  Casaubon,  whose  books  they  could 

'  Camdeni  Epp.  p.  139.  "^  Ephem.  p.  916. 

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382  ISAAC  CASAVBON.  [Sec*. 

not  read,  only  the  champion  of  prelacy,  the  deserter  from 
the  calvinistic  camp.  The  wits  of  the  Mermaid  were 
jealous  of  the  foreign  pensioner,  and  the  'prentices 
thought  it  meritorious  to  'eave  'alf  a  brick  at  the  French- 
man! His  windows  were  more  than  once  broken  by 
stones.  He  appealed,  not  to  the  city  authorities,  but  to 
the  archbishop,  for  protection.  He  had  lived,  he  said, 
twelve  years  in  Paris,  in  the  most  bigoted  quarter  of  the 
city,  close  to  the  cordeliers,  and  other  furious  enemies  of 
his  church,  without  molestation.  Now  the  streets  were  not 
safe  to  him  ^,  he  was  pursued  with  abuse,  or  with  stones, 
his  children  were  beaten.  On  one  occasion  he  appeared 
himself  at  Theobald's  with  a  black  eye.  Some  ruffian 
had  hit  him  a  blow  with  his  fist,  probably  while  the 
coach,  in  which  he  was  driving,  was  progressing  slowly 
through  the  narrow  and  crowded  streets  of  the  city.  The 
blow  was  so  violent  a  shock  to  his  emaciated  frame,  that 
at  first  he  thought  'he  had  lost  his  right  eye^.'  The 
burglary  committed  in  his  house  on  the  night  of  March  i, 
1614,  appeared  to  Casaubon  a  part  of  the  system  of  annoy- 
ance, but  is  only  an  instance  of  the  general  insecurity,  and 
want  of  police  in  the  London  of  that  day. 

Hallam  suggests  that  these  outrages  proceeded  from 
'  the  popish  party,'  a  suggestion  still  more  unfortunate  than 
that  lately  mentioned  ^.  The  London  street  bullies  were 
not  likely  to  have  heard  of  his  learned  letters  against  the 
Jesuits.  Had  the  catholics  ventured  to  assault  Casaubon, 
he  would  have  been  immediately  taken  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  'prentices,  who  were  violent '  no-popery '  boys. 
Only  a  few  years  later,  1618,  the  sacred  person  of  the 
Spanish  ambassador  was  hardly  saved  from  their  violence  '*. 

'  Ep.  1056 :  '  Liberi  saspe  pulsati ;  probra  saepe  in  nos  conjecta ;  lapidibus 
quotidie  fere  incessimur.' 

^  Eph.  936 :  '  Oculura  dextrum  pasne  amisimus,  icti  a  nebulone  quodam  pugno, 
cum  in  rheda  veheremur     .     .     .     sine  ulla  plane  causa.' 

'  Above,  p.  377,  note  2. 

'  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Aug.  15,  1618,  ap.  Birch. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1 610-1 614.  383 

If  any  religious  party  instigated  the  assailants  in  Cas- 
aubon's  case,  they  were  undoubtedly  the  puritans. 
But  there  is  no  evidence  of  religious  antipathy  against 
Casaubon,  whose  arminian  leanings  were  known  only  to  a 
few.  Nor  are  we  to  think,  in  1614,  of  those  terrors  of  the 
night,  the  Hectors,  the  Muns,  or  the  Tityre  Tus,  a  later 
form  of  ruffianism.  It  is  probable  that  it  was  simply  as  a 
foreigner  that  he  was  obnoxious.  The  worst  attack  was 
in  June  1612,  at  the  moment  when  the  animosity  of  the 
London  mob  against  the  Scotch  was  at  its  height,  so  that 
the  Scottishmen  were  '  bodily  afraid,'  and  300  of  them 
passed  through  Ware,  on  their  road  northwards,  within 
ID  days^.  From  Elisabeth's  reign  onwards  we  hear  of 
continual  conspiracies  of  the  Londoners  against  the 
French  and  Flemings  who,  driven  to  emigrate  by  religious 
persecution,  settled  in  London  and  '  ruined  english  trade  ^.' 
The  british  workman,  awkward  and  indocile  then  as  now, 
could  not  compete  with  the  superior  intelHgence  and 
thrift  of  the  French.  There  were  10,000  foreigners  in 
London  alone  in  1621.  And  trade  rivalry  apart,  when  is 
the  time  that  a  Frenchman  has  not  been  fair  game  in  the 
streets  of  London?  In  1584,  Giordano  Bruno^  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  the  London  cockneys  similar  insults,  and  says, 
'  They  thought  when  they  had  called  you  "  foreigner," 
they  had  established  your  title  to  receive  any  kind  of  ill 
usage.'  Nor  was  the  old  brutality  subdued  in  the  follow- 
ing century,  when  John  Bull  still  thought  it  becoming 
to  express  his  contempt  for  a  Frenchman  to  his  face*. 

'  Nichols,  Progr.  a.  449. 

*  See  Stowe's  London,  2.  205,  etc.  Cooper,  Lists  of  Foreign  protestants, 
p.  iv. 

'  Cena  della  cenere,  vol.  i.  p.  146  :  '  Una  plebe  irrispettevole,  incivile,  rozza, 
rustica,  selvatica,  e  male  allevata  .  .  .  che  conoscendoti  forastiero,  ti 
ghignano  .  .  .  ti  chiamano  cane,  traditore,  straniero,  e  questo  a  presso  loro 
e  un  titulo  ingiuriosissimo,  e  che  rende  il  supposito  capace  a  ricevere  tutti  i 
torti  del  mondo.' 

*  E.  g.  the  Thames  wherryman,  who  told  Voltaire,  CEuvres,  29.  393 :  '  Qu'il 
aimoit  mieux  gtre  batelier  sur  la  Tamise  qu'archeveque  en  France.' 

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384  ISAAC   CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Milton  was  doubtless  drawing  from  his  own  London 
experience,  when  he  described  ^  '  The  sons  Of  Belial, 
flown  with  insolence  and  wine,'  wandering  forth  at  night- 
fall to  riot,  injury  and  outrage. 

Friends,  and  kind  ones,  were  not  wanting  to  compensate 
him  for  these  annoyances  of  London.  His  house,  indeed, 
was  no  longer  the  rendezvous  of  callers  or  of  gossips,  as 
it  had  been  in  Paris;  but  by  this  he  was  the  gainer. 
One  source  of  expenditure  of  time  was  thus  cut  off,  by  his 
ignorance  of  the  language.  In  other  ways  the  want  of 
english  was  felt  by  him  as  a  severe  trial.  He  was  cut  off 
from  knowledge  of  the  events  of  the  day;  he  was  only 
half  at  home  in  the  english  church.  He  had  begun,  in 
1609,  at  Grigny,  to  take  lessons  in"  english,  chiefly  that  he 
might  read  Rainolds'  books,  and  those  of  other  anglican 
writers  ^  His  progress,  at  first,  had  delighted  him.  But 
the  lessons  were  dropt  from  want  of  leisure.  Of  sermons, 
he  could  gather  the  general  drift,  no  more.  An  english 
book  he  could  make  a  shift  to  look  over.  But  when  he 
has  to  use  Garnett's  confessions  for  his  pamphlet^,  he 
must  have  them  translated  into  latin  for  him*.  But  he 
could  not  understand  what  was  said  to  him,  and  as  for 
speaking  english  himself,  he  thought  himself  too  old  to 
begin  to  learn  ®.  '  An  old  man  at  his  A  B  C  is  an  object  of 
just  contempt.'  What  he  suffered  in  consequence  from 
english  servants  and  London  tradesmen  may  be  imagined. 
Madame  Casaubon  had  not  even  got  as  far  as  her  hus- 
band. '  Don't  be  anxious  about  your  wife,'  Savile  had 
written  to  him  in  February,  1611",  'she  is  a  woman,  and 

'  P.  L.  I.  498. 

°  Ephem.  p.  693 :  '  Quod  sciebam  Rainoldum  et  alios  summos  theologos  in 
ea  lingua  multa  exquisita  scripsisse.' 

^  See  above,  p.  313. 

*  Ephem.  p.  845  :  '  Ese,  quum  sint  scripte  anglice,  danda  mihi  opera  est,  ut 
aliena  opera  adjutus,  ipsas  perlegam  et  intelligam.'  His  own  notes  from  these 
papers  are  in  latin.     Advers.  25.  p.  65. 

"  Ep.  704  :  '  Turpis  profecto  res  est  senex  elementarius.' 

"  Burney  Mss.  366.  p.   Sa :    '  Da  uxore   noli  solicitus  esse ;    ipsa,   ut  est 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  385 

will  learn  more  english  in  three  days  than  you  will  in  as 
many  centuries.'  But  she  did  not  try.  She  hated  the 
country  and  abominated  the  climate.  In  the  event  of 
settling  in  England  they  had  relied  upon  Philippa,  who 
had  acquired  the  language  in  attendance  on  lady  Carew. 
Madame  Casaubon  could  not  get  on  with  english  servants, 
yet  upon  her  Isaac  was  entirely  dependent  for  the  conduct 
of  the  household,  and  in  her  absence  was  liable  to  be  ter- 
ribly imposed  upon.  When  he  had  been  three  years  in 
the  country  he  had  not  yet  learnt  to  distinguish  the  names 
or  value  of  the  english  coins.  He  once  gave  ^  a  jacobus 
by  mistake  to  a  needy  compatriot  who  was  preying  on  his 
simplicity  and  had  asked  the  loan  of  an  angel.  When  he 
had  to  keep  the  household  accounts,  he  was  astonished  at 
the  amount  of  the  outgoings  ^.  The  cost  of  a  new  suit  to 
appear  at  court  in  seemed  to  him  ruinous.  The  postage 
of  letters  ^  to  a  man  who  receives  so  many,  and  to  whom 
authors  send  their  books,  is  a  heavy  tax.  His  own  books 
must  be  presented  to  various  great  persons,  as  to  the 
king,  and  then  they  must  be  bound*.  Books  published 
abroad  were  very  costly  in  London.  Books,  too,  must 
be  had  for  his  own  use,  and  must  be  paid  for  in  cash, 
except  to  Norton,  the  king's  wealthy  publisher,  who 
would  give  credit.  In  May,  161 1,  he  was  at  the  bottom 
of  his  purse,  and  resolved,  till  his  wife's  return,  to  spend 
no  more  on  books,  with  a  caveat,  however,  which  a  book- 
buyer  will  appreciate,  ^ '  unless  I  should  meet  with  some- 
thing very  scarce.'    By  August,  the  account  at  Bill's — 

ingenium  mulierum,  unico  triduo  plus  discet  in  lingua  nostra,  quam  tu  tribus 
seculis.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  1007. 

^  Ephem.  p.  993 :  '  Non  solitus  administrare  pecuniam,  cum  video  impensas 
hujus  domus  obstupefio.'  Ephem.  p.  996 :  '  Rationes  cum  multis  composui,  et 
miror  impensas  hujus  domus.' 

^  Ep.  757  :   '  Immani  pretio  redimendus  fuit  ille  mihi  fasciculus.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  812:  'Regi  .  .  .  dedi  e  meis  libris  quos  hie  potui  reperire 
etsi  auro  contra  caros     .     .     .     omnes  magnifice  compactos.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  838 :  '  Excepto  si  quid  occurrat  rarius.' 

C   C 

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386  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Norton's  successor— had  grown  to  300  livres,  a  sum  which 
he  groaned  over,  but  made  shift  to  pay.  During  Madame 
Casaubon's  long  absence  in  1613,  the  administration  was 
an  interim.  The  household  got  on  anyhow.  ^ '  My  affairs 
are  in  deplorable  confusion,  but  all  will  be  set  right  when 
my  wife  returns.' 

It  is  somewhat  perplexing  to  find  Casaubon,  after  his 
settlement  in  England,  as  much  hampered  by  pecuniary 
cares  as  ever.  At  one  time  he  says,  '  that  in  London  he 
wanted  everything  but  money,  and  of  that  for  the  first 
time  in  his  Hfe  he  had  no  lack.'  This  may  have  been 
a  moment  when  he  found  his  purse  full.  For  the 
general  tone  of  the  diary  is  that  of  distress.  ^'I  am 
overwhelmed  with  cares,  business,  expenses.'  He  seems 
to  have  been  at  last  driven  to  such  straits,  that  it  was 
requisite  to  make  an  application  to  the  king  for  relief  ^ 
Some  vague  promise  was  made  him  *.  But  a  little  later, 
when  it  became  apparent  that  his  health  was  failing,  a 
renewed  promise  of  further  help  was  sent  him  by  the 
king^.  This  was  not  till  May  1614,  a  month  before  his 
final  illness.  We  must  suppose  that  the  necessity  was 
urgent  before  he  could  bring  himself  to  beg.  He  had 
long  avoided  doing  so.  But  he  did  not  escape  the  sar- 
casms of  the  Jesuit  pamphleteers  on  this  head.  That 
Casaubon  was  gone  to  England  to  make  money  out  of  the 
british  Croesus  was  too  obvious  an  imputation  to  be 
neglected  *.    When  these  gibes  were  mentioned  to  James 


'  Ephem.  p.  998:  'Omnia  mea  susque  deque;  restituentur  in  suum  locum 
si  uxor  venerit.'  Cf.  eph.  p.  988 :  '  Vides,  bone  deus,  dissipationem  hujus 
domus.' 

"  Ephem.  p.  997;   'Obruor  sumtibus,  negotiis,  curis.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  1046 :  '  Ne  meas  ipse  mihi  spes  prseciderim  scribens  ad  regem 
serenissimum,  quem  alioquin  scio  esse  mei  non  mediocriter  amantem.' 

'  Ephem.  p.  1051 ;  '  Ab  episcopo  Bathoniensi  audivi  quam  nihil  insit  solidi  spei 
nuper  excitatae.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  1056 :  '  Hodie  venit  ad  me  D.  Bathoniensis  jussu  regis  ut  de  rebus 
meis  meliora  in  posterum  poUiceretur.' 

"  See  Eudaemon-Joannes,  Responsio  ad  epist.  pp.  160,  163,  and  passim. 

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TX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614,  387 

he  said  to  Casaubon,  '  Since  your  coining,  you  never  once 
asked  me  for  anything ;  you  know  you  would  have  got  it, 
if  you  had.'  These  insinuations  of  the  Jesuits  were  indeed 
but  the  echo  of  the  gossip  of  the  english  court.  Carleton 
writes  ^ : — 

'  I  was  the  other  day  with  the  bishop  of  Ely,  and  among 
other  talk  lighted  upon  Casaubon,  who,  it  seems,  is  scant 
contented  with  his  entertainment  of  ;^30o  a  year,  being 
promised  greater  matters  by  the  late  archbishop,  who 
bestowed  a  prebend  upon  him  at  Canterbury,  which  he 
valued  at  six  score  pounds  a  year,  and  falls  out  not 
worth  the  fourth  part.  But  his  greatest  emulation  or 
envy  is  at  Turquet's  preferment,  who  hath  £\<xi  pension 
of  the  king,  ;£^400  of  the  queen,  with  a  house  provided 
him,  and  many  other  commodities,  which  he  reckons  at 
;^i4oo  a  year.' 

This  gossip  may  not  be  accurate  as  to  the  figures,  but, 
while  it  shows  the  ill-will  of  the  courtiers  towards  the 
pensioner,  it  points  to  what  was  certainly  a  fact,  that 
Casaubon's  money  difficulties  were  the  talk  of  the  court. 
As  to  the  value  of  the  stall  at  Canterbury,  we  learn,  from 
Carier's  report  to  Casaubon  ^,  that  it  amounted,  including 
the  rent  of  the  prebendal  house,  to  ;£'ioo  for  the  first  year. 
This,  with  the  £'yxi  a  year  from  the  crown,  and  the  french 
pension,  which  continued  to  be  paid  to  the  last,  was  an 
income  which,  we  should  think,  ought  to  have  raised 
Casaubon  above  want,  if  not  placed  him  in  easy  circum- 
stances. But,  it  would  seem  that  with  the  increase  of  his 
means,  the  drain  upon  them  increased.  His  pervert  son, 
who  remained  behind  in  Paris,  was  dependent  upon  him. 
His  nephew,  Isaac  Chabanes,  though  he  had  been  taken 
into  the  service  of  the  dutch  ambassador  '^,  had  to  be  occa- 


1  Birch,  Court  and  Times  of  James  i,  i.  149. 
'  Burney  Mss.  363.  ap.  Russell,  Ephem.  p.  1185. 

'  Bibl.  nat.  coll.  Dupuy,  708,  p.  86;  of.  Cas.  ep.  902,  and  Is.  Chabanes  to 
Cas.  Burney  mss.  367.  p.  8. 

C  C  2 

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388  •  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

sionally  assisted.  He  supported  his  sister  Anna,  who 
took  what  he  could  give,  and  abused  him  for  not  giving 
more.  Meric  was  at  Eton,  and  though  on  the  foundation, 
must  have  cost  something.  For  the  younger  children  he 
had  a  tutor  in  the  house,  James  Wedderburn,  a  tutor  who 
was  modest  enough  to  confess  that  the  salary  which 
Casaubon  gave  him  was  more  than  he  ought  to  have, 
relatively  either  to  his  own  merits  or  to  Casaubon's 
means  ^  Besides  these,  Madame  Casaubon  had  her  re- 
lations, whom  she  had  fetched  from  Geneva  and  Lyon  to 
live  either  in  the  house,  or  dependent  upon  it;  ^'Asif,'  he 
says,  '  I  was  a  prince  and  could  maintain  whole  families 
besides  my  own.'  These  were  outlets  for  money,  which 
occasional  presents  from  king  or  bishops  would  go  but 
little  way  to  meet.  And  there  are  repeated  allusions  to 
losses  he  was  sustaining  in  France,  probably  of  his  wife's 
property.  The  circumstances  are  not  explained :  but  it 
was  to  see  after  this  business  that  Madame  Casaubon  re- 
turned to  France  in  1613.  She  cannot  have  been  altoge- 
ther unsuccessful,  as  we  hear  of  a  bill  of  exchange  for 
2300  livres  coming  over,  with  which,  in  her  absence  Cas- 
aubon did  not  know  how  to  deal.  Thus,  though  his 
income  was  more  than  doubled,  pecuniary  anxiety  weighed 
on  his  mind  as  heavily  as  it  had  done  in  Paris.    July  28, 

1612,  he  enters,  'A  day  of  sadness  and  vexation.  I  had 
my  time  free  for  study,  but  I  made  no  way,  my  mind  being 
distracted  with  divers  cares.'  In  1613-14,  while  engaged 
on  Baronius,  it  is  the  same  cry  of  distress.     November  14, 

1613,  'O  wretched  house  this!  not  a  single  day  passes 
without  heavy  grief  of  both  of  us,  my  wife  and  myself, 
from  the  cause,  which  thou,  O  God,  knowest ! '  In  several 
places  of  the  diary  where  this  secret  cause  of  grief  is 

1  Burney  mss.  366.  ap.  Russell :  '  Salarium  mihi  a  te  constitutum  est,  majus 
quidem  illud,  quam  ut  ei  fortunse  tuse  vel  merita  mea  respondeant.' 

"  Ephem.  p.  1000:  'Quasi  ego  regulus  essem  aliquis,  at  possem  integras 
familias  alienas  alere.' 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  389 

touched  upon,  some  later  hand,  probably  Merle's,  has 
erased  the  material  words  ^  It  is  only  a  conjecture  that 
this  unexplained  sorrow  is  the  pressure  of  pecuniary  want 
which  in  other  places  is  spoken  of  without  disguise. 

While  thus  suffering  from  straitened  means,  he  had  to 
hear  the  taunts  of  the  catholic  party  writers,  that  he  had 
sold  his  conscience  for  english  gold. 

Till  his  removal  to  England,  Casaubon  had  enjoyed 
almost  entire  immunity  from  the  party  pamphleteers. 
This  exemption,  when  every  other  less  conspicuous 
huguenot  man  of  letters  was  being  bespattered  with  dirt, 
was  due  to  the  full  expectation,  which  was  all  along  enter- 
tained, of  his  becoming  one  of  theirs  at  last.  But  when  he 
took  service  under  the  king  of  England,  this  hope  was 
necessarily  abandoned.  The  prohibition  was  taken  off, 
and  Casaubon's  troubles  were  aggravated  by  a  new 
one,  till  now  unknown.  And  when  he  himself  became 
a  pamphleteer,  and  lowered  himself  to  answer  Emmanuel 
Sa  and  the  '  Amphitheatrum,'  he  ought  to  have  been 
prepared  to  take  the  inevitable  consequence.  His  '  Epistle 
to  Pronto'  was  published  in  October  161 1.  It  was  not 
likely  that  such  a  challenge  should  not  be  taken  up.  The 
most  conspicuous  protestant  writer  of  the  day  was  here 
stating  the  case  of  the  most  powerful — of  the  only  con- 
siderable— protestant  sovereign.  The  sectarian  interest 
was  stimulated  by  personal  animosity  in  the  recollection 
that  this  champion  of  the  king  of  England  had  come  so 
close  to  them,  and  yet  had  drawn  off  from  them.  The 
'  spretae  injuria  formae '  was  all  the  more  galling,  because 
the  wooing  had  been  long  and  passionate. 

A  concentrated  fire  was  ordered  to  be  directed  upon  his 
position.    The  principal  assailants  were  Eudaemon-Joannes 

'  See  e.  g.  Ephem.  p.  1037 :  '  Omnium  quae  hoc  anno  praeter  animi  sententiam 
nobis  acciderunt  est  longe  maximum  malum  [an  erasure]  tibi,  Deus  seterne, 
notum  .  .  .  durat  enim,  durat,  et  nunc  quam  angit  me  et  uxorem  meam 
tristissima  ilia  cura  et  dirissima  soUicitudo.' 

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390  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

and  Rosweyd,  two  Jesuits,  the  Louvain  professor  Erycius 
Puteanus,  Bulenger,  and  the  notorious  Scioppius.  The 
incisive  pen  of  Scioppius  made  him  the  most  telhng  and 
feared  hbeller  of  the  day.  But  no  party  could  trust  him, 
and  the  authorised  '  answerer '  of  the  Jesuits  was  now 
Eudaemon- Joannes,  or  L'Heureux.  Of  this  voluminous 
pamphleteer  I  can  find  no  authentic  account  ^.  Dr.  Abbot, 
the  regius  professor  of  Oxford,  had  been  told  that  he  was 
Fisher,  the  enghsh  Jesuit^.  But  this  was  only  a  guess,  and 
a  wrong  one.  His  own  account  of  himself  was  that  he  was 
a  native  of  Crete,  educated  in  Italy,  and  that  his  family 
name  was  Eudsemon- Joannes  ^.  However  this  may  be,  his 
pamphlet  against  Casaubon  *  shows  an  acquaintance  with 
enghsh  affairs,  and  London  gossip,  which  can  only  be 
explained  by  the  excellence  of  the  secret  intelligence  which 
the  Jesuits  knew  how  to  secure.  His  style,  not  so  trench- 
ant as  Scioppius',  is  yet  forcible,  and  his  management  of 
his  topics  adroit.  He  has  the  great  advantage  over  his 
adversary,  that,  though  he  writes  in  his  own  name,  he  is 
covered  by  the  corporate  interest  of  the  society  of  Jesus, 
and  has  the  sympathy  of  the  great  catholic  party.  In  this 
point  of  view  it  is  noticeable  that  though  Eudaemon- 
Joannes  does  not  venture  openly  to  avow  the  gunpowder- 
plotters,  he  makes  it  evident  that  the  party  secretly 
approved  them.  The  gunpowder-treason  wanted  but 
success  to  have  been  inscribed,  like  the  S.  Bartholomew, 
on  the  banners  of  the  catholic  church. 

Two  points  in  the '  Responsio  ad  epistolam  Is.  Casauboni,' 
may  be  selected  for  notice  as  illustrating  this  life,  and  the 
history  of  letters. 

I.  The  Jesuit  assumes  the  tone  of  superior  learning. 
Eudaemon-Joannes,  notwithstanding  his  Cretan  birth,  knew 

*  [Witte,  Diar.  Biogr.,  gives  December  24,  1625,  as  the  date  of  his  death.] 
'  Antilogia,  ep.  ad  lectorem. 

"  Confutatio  Anticotoni,  p.  106 ;  Responsio  ad  ep.  Is.  Cas.  p.  99 :  '  Me  a 
puero  a  prsestantissimis  viris  Orlandino,  Tursellino,  Valtrino,  Bencio  institutum.' 

*  See  above,  p.  365. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  39T 

hardly  anything  of  greek '.  He  says  himself^  that  greek 
books  were  so  scarce  in  Italy  that '  we  are  obliged  to  use 
latin  translations.'  He  has  nothing  that  can  be  called 
learning,  and  no  acquirements,  as  his  numerous  pamphlets 
testify,  beyond  those  of  a  well-trained  academical  man.  Yet 
he  can  assume,  towards  the  most  learned  man  then  living, 
the  airs  of  supercilious  patronage.  This  fact  is  evidence 
of  the  high  reputation  which  the  Jesuit  training,  both  in 
their  colleges  and  in  their  professed  houses,  had  by  this 
time  attained.  Because  Casaubon  has  not  gone  through 
the  curriculum  of  their  colleges,  he  can  be  spoken  of  as 
'  imperfectly  educated  ^.'  The  first  greek  scholar  of  the 
day  can  be  told  by  a  writer  who  can  barely  read  the  letters, 
that  he  is  '  not  only  not  in  the  second,  but  barely  in  the 
third  class*.'  This  prestige  of  their  training  they  trans- 
ferred to  controversy,  and  every  puny  Jesuit  adopted  the 
language  of  contempt  for  his  opponent's  learning,  So 
Knott,  in  1634^,  scorned  at  the  ignorance  of  the  english 
clergy ;  and  Scioppius,  in  1615  ^,  said,,  that  '  if  James  were 
richer  than  the  Pici  who  dwell  on  the  golden  mountains, 
he  will  not  be  able  to  get  together  twenty  learned  men  in 
England,'  in  allusion  to  the  Chelsea  college  scheme. 

In  their  assault  upon  Casaubon's  credit,  this  arrogancy 
of  the  guild  stood  the  Jesuits  in  good  stead.  It  was  more- 
over combined  with  the  ordinary  professional  jealousy. 
The  clerical  writers  affected  to  .treat  Casaubon  as  a  scholar 


'  Cas.  ep.  ad  Front,  p.  150:  'Grsecae  linguae  esse  imperitissimum,  quae 
legi  illius  mihi  dudum  persuaserunt.' 

^  Cappell.  Vindiciae,  p.  30. 

'  Responsio  ad  ep.  Is.  Cas.  p.  51  :  '  Haec  homo  disciplinarum  expers  non 
satis  dijudicat.'  Ibid.  p.  7  :  '  Imperitum  grammaticum.'  Ibid.  p.  14 :  '  Rusticum 
dialecticse.'     Ibid.  p.  25:    'Qui  ultra  Suetonium  et  Lampridium  pslttaci  more 

loquitur.' 

•  Responsio  ad  ep.  p.  179:  '  Grsecse  linguse,  cujus  te  deum  facis,  viri  prae- 
stantissimi  in  scriptis  tuis  ita  exiguam  cognitionem  deprehenderunt,  ut  te  ne  in 
secundis  quidem,  vix  etiam  in  tertiis  numerent.' 

'  As  quoted  by  Chillingworth,  Relig.  of  Protest.,  Works,  i.  46. 

"  Holofernis  Krigssederi  .  .  .  Responsio  ad  Epist.  I.  Cazoboni.  Ingolstadt, 
1615,  p.  82. 


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393  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

who  had  presumed  to  encroach  upon  a  profession  to  which 
he  was  not  bred.  Because  he  had  read  the  classics 
forsooth !  he  thought  himself  qualified  to  dabble  in  the 
high  mysteries  of  theology.  The  reciprocal  jealousy  of 
professions  dates  from  the  existence  of  professions,  and 
is  not  confined  to  the  clerical  order.  So  the  lawyers 
sneered  at  Saumaise  when  he  wrote  on  usury.  But  in 
the  present  instance,  in  the  17th  century  controversy, 
a  momentous  fallacy  was  involved  in  the  assumption  that 
philology  was  one  science,  and  theology  another.  Casau- 
bon's  reply  to  the  Jesuit  taunt  was  that  he  had  always,  from 
his  youth,  been  a  student  of  theology.  He  ought  to  have 
replied  in  the  memorable  words  of  Scaliger  ^,  '  Our 
theological  disputes  all  arise  from  ignorance  of  grammar.' 
It  was  a  question  of  interpretation — and  of  the  interpretation 
of  books,  greek  and  latin,  written  at  given  dates.  In  the 
controversy  on  the  claims  of  the  roman  church,  the  appeal 
was  an  appeal  to  antiquity ;  and  of  the  meaning  of  antiquity, 
the  scholars  are  the  judges.  From  the  Jesuits  the  Savile 
party  borrowed  the  taunt,  and  Montagu  is  perpetually 
regretting  that  Casaubon  was  not  '  more  of  the  divine.' 

2.  The  other  point  to  be  noticed  in  Eudaeraon-Joannes 
is  the  dexterity  with  which  the  Jesuit  controversialist 
intermingles  his  personalities.  The  object  being  to  destroy 
the  effect  of  Casaubon's  book,  this  object  is  more  effectually 
served  by  discrediting  the  writer,  than  by  answering  his 
arguments.  The  general  reader  is  more  attracted  by 
personalities  than  by  reasoning.  Every  topic  is  produced 
which  could  lower  Casaubon  in  the  eyes  of  the  reader; 
and  the  insinuations  and  suggestions  are  not  made  at 
random,  but  are  founded  on  fact,  and  have  the  local 
colouring.  •  The  Jesuits  knew  enough  of  the  history  of 
Casaubon's  mind  to  know  that,  in  his  ultimate  decision 
against    the    roman    claims,  he    had    been    decided    by 

'  Scaligerana  i».  p.  86 :  '  Non  aliunde  dissidia  in  religione  pendent,  quam  ab 
ignoratione  grammaticse.' 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  393 

the  preponderance  of  evidence  as  it  presented  itself  to  him. 
But  the  circumstances  of  his  Hfe  made  the  charge  of 
venaUty  plausible,  and  they  urge  it  unceasingly.  He  has 
sold  his  conscience  to  the  king  of  England.  At  his  age, 
drawing  towards  the  close  of  a  blameless  hfe,  he  has  parted 
with  his  integrity  to  purchase  the  short-lived  favour  of 
a  fickle  court,  and  to  bear  the  indignant  murmurs  of  the 
home-born  Englishmen  at  finding  a  foreign  grammarian, 
a  corrector  from  Stephens'  press,  preferred  before  them  ^- 
The  fleshpots  of  Egypt,  the  'nidor  AngHcanae  cuHnse,' 
were  surely  hardly  worth  the  price  Casaubon  had  paid 
for  them ! 

Kind  friends  took  care  that  Casaubon  should  see  what 
was  thus  being  said  of  him.  Lingelsheim  sent  him  part 
of  the  sheets  from  Heidelberg  before  the  book  was  out. 
Swert  sent  the  book  itself  from  Antwerp,  and  a  third  copy 
was  given  him  by^  'a  great  man.'  Casaubon  was  neither 
curious  nor  sensitive  about  what  was  written  of  himself, 
and  on  glancing  over  the  sheets  of  Eudaemon-Joannes' 
effusion,  it  seemed  to  him  so  trivial  ^  that  he  threw  it 
aside,  without  reading  it  through.  His  glance  must  have 
been  very  cursory,  for  quick  and  observant  reader  as  he 
was,  he  had  not  noticed  the  allusions, — three  at  least— to 
the  rope.  Prideaux  pointed  these  out  to  him  at  Oxford  *. 
Isaac,  indifferent  to  abuse  of  himself,  could  not  bear 
a  word  breathed  against  the  memory  of  his  father.  He 
now  became  urgent  that  the  book  should  be  answered  ®- 
It  was  decided  by  the  king  and  the  bishops  that  Casaubon 
should  not  waste  any  more  time  on  controversy.  He 
should  give  himself,  without  interruption,  to  the  review 
of  Baronius,  and  the  rector  of  Exeter  should  answer  '  the 
Cretan^.'     Prideaux    did    this    in    a    smart    pamphlet, 

1  Scaligerana  i".  p.  178.  '  Ep.  875. 

'  Ephem.  p.  966 :  '  Librum  futilem  sane.' 
*  See  above,  p.  365.  ''  Ep.  871. 

'  Ep.  857 :  '  Non  vult  serenissimus  rex  ut  ego  vel  horulam  unam  ponam  jn 
naeniis  illis  confutandis.' 

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394  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

'  Castigatio  cujusdam  circulatoris  qui  .  .  .  Eudsemon-Johan- 
nem  .  .  .  seipsum  nuncupat,  Oxon.  1614.'  This  rejoinder 
goes  through  every  topic,  almost  through  every  paragraph, 
of  the  '  Responsio  ad  epistolam  Is.  Casauboni,'  retorting 
it  on  the  respondent  in  the  style  of  Andrewes,  but  hardly 
with  Andrewes'  wit.  The  allusions  to  the  '  rope '  were 
left  to  Casaubon  himself  to  answer.  This  he  did  in  a  long 
digression  inserted  in  the  '  Exercitationes  Baronianae.'  It 
is  that  narrative  from  which  our  knowledge  of  Arnold  Cas- 
aubon's  life  and  death,  and  of  Isaac's  childhood,  is  derived. 
Prideaux  also  printed  the  interesting  paragraph  at  length  at 
the  end  of  his  own  pamphlet.  Few  copies  of  Prideaux's 
pamphlet  survive,  a  proof  of  its  small  circulation  at  the  time. 
But  the  incorporation  of  the  autobiographical  fragment  in 
the  '  Exercitationes '  made  it  widely  known  on  the  con- 
tinent ;  and  its  touching  sincerity  has  naturally  attracted  the 
attention  of  all  those  who  have  written  of  Isaac  Casaubon. 

Eudaemon-Joannes,  however,  was  decent  and  rational 
compared  with  the  next  assailant.  Encouraged  by  the 
success  of  his  libel  on  Scaliger,  Scioppius  now  attacked 
Casaubon  with  the  same  weapon — prodigious  lying. 

The  pamphlet  against  Casaubon  comes  about  midway  in 
the  series  of  Scioppian  libels,  a  series,  which  in  its  extent, 
its  savage  licence,  its  ingenuity,  and  audacity  of  fiction 
has  not  its  equal  in  extant  literature.  Having  scarified 
the  king  of  England  sufficiently  in  the  Ecclesiasticus, 
161 1,  and  the  Alexipharmacum,  1612,  Scioppius  gave  out 
that  he  was  next  going  to  fall  upon  the  king  of  England's 
dog.  It  was  part  of  his  tactic  to  designate  his  victim,  and 
thus  enhance  the  sting  by  the  torture  of  suspense.  The 
'  Holofernis  Krigsaederi  .  .  responsio  ad  epistolam  Is. 
Cazoboni '  was  published  at  Ingoldstadt,  1615,  but  it  was 
written  at  Madrid  more  than  a  year  before.  Frenzied  by 
vanity,  spite,  and  disappointed  ambition,  Scioppius  had 
gone  to  Madrid  in  search  of  notoriety,  and  of  the  reward 
of  his  catholic  zeal,  which  was  incessantly  promised,  and 

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IX.]  LONDON.      1610-1614.  395 

never  received,  at  Rome.  As  Casaubon  died  in  July,  1614, 
he  would  never  have  seen  the  '  Holofernes,'  had  not 
Digby,  enghsh  ambassador 'in  Spain,  transmitted  to  his 
court  a  MS.  copy — '  stolen '  said  Scioppius,  but,  no  doubt, 
by  his  own  contrivance.  The  allegations  of  this  libel  are 
equally  atrocious,  and  equally  unfounded,  with  those  of  the 
'Scaliger  hypoboHmaeus,'  but  they  are  not  equally  well 
aimed.  As  long  as  he  is  rallying  Casaubon  on  his  situation 
as  arch-paedagogue  to  the  king  of  England,  when  he  is  por- 
traying Isaac  Casaubon  flaunting  it  in  surplice  and  hood, 
playing  at  prelacy,  he  is  piquant,  and  at  least  within  the 
bounds  of  probability.  But  when  he  goes  on  to  charge 
upon  Casaubon  swindling,  lechery,  adultery  and  unnatural 
crime,  and  in  support  of  these  accusations  to  tell  detailed 
stories  which  are  pure  inventions  of  Scioppius'  malignant 
imagination,  the  libel  has  overshot  its  mark,  and  becomes 
flat  stupidity. 

The  character  of  Casaubon  was  too  well  established 
and  too  widely  known  for  any  of  this  dirt  to  be  credited 
outside  the  convents  and  the  Jesuit  colleges.  Casaubon 
had  not,  like  Scaliger,  created  by  criticism  a  host  of 
enemies.  Scioppius,  indeed,  used  to  boast  that  he  had 
killed  Casaubon,  as  he  had  killed  Scaliger  ^  But  we  find 
from  the  diary  that  these  horrible  calumnies  did  not  affect 
him  seriously.  Even  the  more  plausible  insinuations  of 
Eudaemon-Joannes  gave  him,  except  so  far  as  his  father 
was  touched,  little  concern  ^-  The  suggestion  which  came 
most  home  to  him  was  that  he  had  been  bought  by  the 
king  of  England.  This  was  a  suggestion  exactly  calculated 
for  the  english  mind,  and  it  took.  The  'purse  of  the 
english  king,'  '  the  scent  of  the  anglican  kitchen,'  were  the 
stock  phrases.  Still  these  were  political  or  religious 
opponents,  or  the  native  party  jealous  of  foreign  pen- 

'  Graevius,  Prsefat.  in  Eremitam,  De  vita  aulica ;  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  76. 
^  Ep.  880,  to  Lingelsheim :  '  Noli  putare  aliquid  molestiae  ex  illo  fatuo  libro 
me  cepisse.' 

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396  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

sioners,  whether  french  or  scotch.  It  gave  him  deeper 
pain  when  he  heard  that  Schott  had  said  of  him  that  '  he 
had  sold  his  conscience  for  gcJld  ^.' 

Andreas  Schottus  deserves  a  niche  in  the  history 
of  learning  on  more  than  one  account.  His  name  is 
connected  with  the  discovery  of  the  '  monumentum 
Ancyranum,'  and  he  was  the  first  editor  of  Diogenianus, 
a  task  for  which  his  knowledge  of  greek,  however,  was 
insufficient.  His  insufficiency  is  almost  excused  by  his 
modesty.  His  love  of  classical  learning  was  genuine,  and 
what  Scaliger  said  of  Marc  Welser  might  be  applied  to 
Schott,  that  'it  was  only  his  religion. which  prevented  him 
from  knowing  a  great  deaP,'  Schott  was  a  native  of 
Antwerp,  attracted,  when  young,  into  the  society  of  Jesus, 
by  the  hope  of  finding  in  it  the  means  of  satisfying  his 
love  of  reading.  He  was  soon  undeceived,  and  had  to 
spend  the  best  years  of  his  fife  regenting  classes  in  their 
various  colleges  in  Spain  and  Italy.  Forty  years  of  this 
mechanical  routine  destroyed  his  mind,  and  broke  his  will, 
but  he  preserved  his  tastes.  In  1597  he  returned  to  the 
college  of  the  society  in  Antwerp,  and  was  settled  there 
for  the  remainder  of  his  life.  At  seventy-seven,  his  age 
when  he  died  (1629),  he  was  Still  teaching  the  rudiments, 
but  he  had  been  released  from  the  worst  drudgery,  and 
for  many  years  was  chiefly  engaged  in  translations,  edi- 
tions, or  collections  of  classical  and  patristic  remains. 
Under  the  pressure  of  the  infirmities  of  old  age,  especially 
that  of  failing  eyesight,  neither  his  interest  nor  his  industry 
was  abated.  His  love  of  letters,  and  the  fact  that  as  a 
young  man  he  had  been  received  into  the  Scaliger  circle 
in  Paris,  led  to  his  correspondence  with  Casaubon  as  early 
as  1602.  It  was  not  approved  among  spiritual  martinets, 
that  a  Jesuit  should  hold  any  intercourse  with  heretics. 

1  Ep  876. 

^  Scaligerana  2".  p.  204:  'Velserum  superstitio  multa  scire,  et  plura  quara 
scit,  praepedit.' 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  397 

Even  father  Schott,  'who  often  wrote  to  our  people \' 
in  writing  to  Voss  (G.  J.)  abstained  from  signing  his  name 
at  the  end  of  his  letter,. and  subscribes  himself^  'the 
darkling  who  translated  Photius.'  He  sends  Casaubon 
his  books;  his  ' Tullianse quaestiones '  in  1610,  his  'Adagia 
graeca'  in  1611,  with  the  request  that  he  would  not  spare 
criticism  upon  them  ^.  Casaubon  responds.  They  are 
on  the  footing  of  'mi  Schotte,'  and  'mi  Casaubone,' 
though  they  have  never  seen  each  other.  There  was 
that  in  the  gentle  virtue  of  the  Jesuit  which  suited  with 
Casaubon's  own  disposition  *.  '  When  as  a  young  man  I 
first  read  your  books,  I  conceived  from  them  an  esteem 
for  your  character,  which  has  been  confirmed  by  what 
others  have  since  told  me  of  you.' 

When,  in  161 1,  Casaubon  published  his  'Letter  to 
Fronto,'  he  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the  'Amphithe- 
atrum,'  and  he  did  so  with  the  reprobation  with  which 
all  good  men  spoke  of  it.  Now  Schott  was  not  only  a 
Jesuit,  but  was  a  member  of  the  very  house  at  Antwerp 
presided  over  by  the  author  of  the  '  Amphitheatrum,' 
Scribanius.  Schott  remonstrated  with  Casaubon,  re- 
minding him  that  the  'Amphitheatrum,'  though  mentioning 
his  name^,  had  abstained  from  offering  him  any  affront. 
*  The  author,  you  know,  is  my  principal ;  I  am  under  hirn 
in  this  house  ^.  He  would  gladly  embrace  you  in  the 
Lord,  as  within  the  church,  rather  than  see  you  where 
you  are.  That  you  may  think  of  him  more  favourably, 
he  sends  you  a  volume  he  has  lately  published — 
"  Controversiarum  libri " — you  will  like  it  as  devotional 

'  Colomies,  Melange  curieux,  p.  833:  'Ecrivoit  souvent  a  nos  gens.' 
Colomies,  in  this  memorandum,  is  in  error  in  assigning  1636  as  the  date 
of  Schott's  death. 

^  Ibid.:  'Tenebrio,  qui  Photium  dedit  latine.'  Tenebrio  maybe  an  allusion 
to  his  blindness,  or  to  his  retired  life. 

'  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  108 :  '  Quo  plura  obelo  fodies  .  .  .  tanto  me 
tibi  cariorem  existimabo.' 

*  Ep.  364.  '  The  name  of  Casaubon  occurs  in  the  Amphith.  p.  114. 

"  Epp.  ad  Cas.  ep.  40. 

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398  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

reading,  and  be  better  pleased  with  the  style  than  with 
that  of  the  "  Amphitheatrum." ' 

These  being  the  friendly  relations  of  Casaubon  with 
the  Antwerp  Jesuit,  he  was  deeply  pained  to  receive, 
from  another  correspondent  in  Antwerp,  a  copy  of  a 
letter  or  paper  in  which  Schott  had  written,  alluding  to 
Casaubon ;  '  The  unholy  thirst  of  gold  ought  not  to  be 
more  powerful  than  conscience.'  The  hand  of  a  friend 
deals  more  deadly  blows  than  that  of  an  enemy.  When 
Erycius  Puteanus,  the  Louvain  Jesuit,  had  made  the  same 
insinuation  in  his  '  Stricturae,'  1612,  Casaubon  had  not 
heeded  it.  But  Schott's  words  wound  him  to  the  quick. 
He  vents  his  grief  in  expostulation^:  'Ah!  my  ancient 
friend,  what  words  are  these  which  have  escaped  the 
hedge  of  thy  teeth !  That  I  should  prefer  gold  to  piety ! 
That  I  lust  at  all  after  gold!  It  is  not  so,  not  so.  He 
who  has  persuaded  you  of  this  lies  in  a  fashion  worse 
than  Cretan,  and  measures  my  motives  by  his  own.  Had 
I  preferred  gold  to  conscience,  I  should  not  now  be  in 
England.  The  chancellor  of  France  knows  this;  the 
illustrious  cardinal  (Du  Perron)  knows  this.  It  is  known 
to  the  bishop  of  Paris,  to  all  those  in  whose  society  I 
lived  in  Paris,  men  of  your  own  confession,  whose  veracity 
is  beyond  suspicion.  ...  I  pray  you,  illustrious  sir,  as 
you  regard  truth,  as  you  esteem  innocence,  recall  your 
sarcasm,  and  be  on  your  guard  against  believing  a  greek 
of  Crete,  a  patron  of  regicide.'  Schott  did  not  respond 
to  this  appeal,  and  their  correspondence  ended  here. 
Abraham  Scultetus,  the  Heidelberg  minister,  on  his  way 
home  from  London,  called  on  Schott  at  Antwerp,  and 
wrote  to  Casaubon  ^,  '  If  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  good 
Jesuit,  Schott  is  surely  the  best  of  the  good.'  But  the 
letter  was  not  received  in  England,  indeed  was  not 
written,  till  Casaubon  was  no  more. 

Schott  survived  Isaac  Casaubon  fifteen  years,  and  thus 

'  Ep.  876.  2  Burney  mss,  366. 

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IX.l  LONDON.     1610-1614.  399 

lived  to  see  Meric's  'Pietas,'  in  which  Meric  was  naif 
enough  to  print  three  letters  of  Schott  to  his  father, 
by  way  of  evidence  of  Isaac's  erudition.  The  letters 
are  only  evidence  of  Schott's  modesty  and  amiability. 
In  one  wish  which  Schott  expresses  in  a  letter,  dated 
Antwerp,  January  1612,  every  friend  of  Isaac  Casaubon's 
memory  must  concur ^ :  'I  have  received  yours,  most 
illustrious  Casaubon,  and  was  very  sorry  to  find  you 
still  lingering  in  Britain.  The  learned,  and  the  lovers 
of  greek,  had  much  rather  see  you  going  on  with  Polybius 
as  you  had  begun,  and  finishing  the  commentary  you 
have  promised,  than  going  into  a  quarrel  in  which  you 
had  no  concern,  and  in  which  you  can  reap  no  credit,  but 
will  rather  tarnish  the  fame  you  have  already  earned 
by  your  writings.  You  know  how  much  the  lustre  of 
Joseph  Scaliger's  name  was  dimmed  in  his  old  age,  in  con- 
sequence of  his  assailing  some  members  of  our  society, 
from  whom  he  had  never  received  a  single  injurious  word ; 
men  excelling  in  every  branch  of  learning,  such  as  Toleto, 
Bellarmine,  Possevin,  Perier,  and  others^.' 

Another  catholic  friend,  Marc  Welser,  of  Augsburg, 
was  offended,  but  not  alienated,  by  Casaubon's  descent 
into  the  fray.  Welser  was  a  layman,  but  a  great  friend 
and  patron  of  the  Jesuits.  On  their  account  he  had 
broken  with  Scaliger^,  and  Casaubon  was  now  told  by 
Hoeschel*  that  he  must  be  prepared  to  forfeit  Welser's 
friendship.  But  Welser,  who  perhaps  repented  that  he 
had  quarrelled  with  Scaliger,  would  not  give  up  Casaubon. 

'  Epp.  ad  Cas.  ep.  40. 

2  The  notices  relating  to  the  life  of  Andrd  Schott  have  been  collected  by- 
Prof.  Baguet,  in  a  Memoir  printed  in  torn.  23  of  Memoires  de  I'academie  royale 
da  Belgique,  pp.  1-49.  The  author  has  looked  at  the  volume  of  Casauboni 
epistolse,  1709,  with  so  little  care  as  to  attribute  its  publication  to  Meric 
Casaubon,  who  died  1671.  Gaisford  reprinted  the  whole  of  Schott's  notes  on 
Diogenianus  in  Paroemiographi  Graeci,  Oxon.  1836.  Leutsch  and  Schneidewin, 
in  Corpus  Paroemiographorum,  1839,  retained  only  a  small  part, '  resecta  omni 
Schotti  loquacitate  in  rebus  sexcenties  ingestis.' 

*  Scaligerana  2°.  p.  246:  'II  sera  fasch6  de  ce  que  j'ai  escrit  contre  les 
j^suites  ;  il  ne  m'escrit  plus.'  *  Ep.  861. 

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400  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

'  What,'  he  writes  to  Casaubon,  January  30,  1613,  '  you 
imagine  that  I  am  angry  with  you  because  you  have 
muttered  something  against  the  Jesuits?  Not  so,  I  vow 
by  all  that  is  sacred  in  our  friendship.  I  am  not  irritable 
by  temperament,  as  all  my  acquaintance  will  tell  you. 
I  confess  that  in  matters  of  religion  I  am  not  accustomed 
to  hide  my  feelings ;  and  if  I  did,  you  would  not  hold  me 
worthy  of  your  love.  But  in  the  expression  of  my  feeling, 
I  should  never  go  beyond  the  bounds  of  moderation : 
being  restrained  by  a  native  instinct,  by  reason,  by  the 
usages  of  my  country,  and  by  the  position  in  which  my 
fellow-citizens  have  been  pleased  to  place  me.'  This  letter 
justifies  the  character  which  Scaligerat  another  time  ^  gave 
of  Welser,  '  II  est  honnete  homme,  et  ne  maintiendra  pas 
les  jesuites  contre  un  homme  docte.' 

Welser,  with  de  Thou  and  the  liberal  catholics — now 
a  small  band — remained  still  on  friendly  terms  with  Casau- 
bon. Du  Perron  wrote  to  him,  in  June,  1612,  in  that  tone 
of  moderation  and  respect  which  the  cardinal's  own  high 
attainments  imposed  on  him  towards  a  scholar^.  He 
regretted  the  libels  of  which  Casaubon  had  been  the 
object,  and  emphatically  declared  that  he  himself  had  no 
part  in  them.  But  the  zealous  party  represented  by  the 
Jesuits,  Schott,  Fronto  le  Due,  Sirmond,  silently  withdrew 
from  the  correspondence  of  one  who  had,  as  they  thought 
gratuitously,  gone  out  of  his  way  to  constitute  himself  the 
champion  of  a  schismatical  church  and  king.  The  whole 
politics  of  western  Europe  at  the  time  turned  on  ecclesias- 
tical considerations.  It  was  impossible  that  the  same 
feelings  and  interests  should  not  dominate  social  life. 
One  neutral  territory  there  was,  that  of  learning,  and  this 
Casaubon  had  himself  voluntarily  stept  out  of.  He  had 
now  to  abide  the  consequences. 

'  Scaligerana  2''.  p.  247. 

°  Burney   mss.    367.     For   Du   Perron's   own   controverey   with   Casaubon, 
see  p.  190. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  40  r 

It  was  not  only  among  the  catholics,  that  he  had  alien- 
ated friends.  The  calvinists  of  the  continent  were  aware 
that  he  had  left  them,  that  he  neither  shared  their  doctrinal 
notions,  nor  sympathised  with  their  resistance  to  govern- 
ment. Cappel  writes  sarcastically  from  Sedan  ^  in  161 1, 
imploring  him  in  his  conduct  of  the  controversy  to  spare 
the  puritans,  and  the  gallic  churches,  '  from  which  for  so 
many  years  he  had  sucked  the  milk  of  piety.'  He  insinu- 
ates that  Casaubon's  leanings  toward  tran  substantiation 
were  a  relic  of  Du  Perron's  influence,  which  he  had  hoped 
that  Casaubon  might  have  got  rid  of  in  England  ('  si  quid 
fuliginis  adhuc  superest  ex  convictu  cum  Perronio '). 

The  light  in  which  Casaubon  was  now  regarded  by 
his  own  church  is  put  in  such  strong  relief  by  a  letter  of 
Du  Moulin,  that  it  is  necessary  to  give  it  at  length.  It  is 
addressed  to  Montagu,  bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  and  is 
written  shortly  after  Casaubon  had  left  Paris  for  England 
in  1610^  : — 

'  I  am  very  loth,  my  lord,  to  intrude  upon  your  much- 
occupied  time  by  this  writing,  yet  I  do  hold  myself 
bounden  to  communicate  with  you  on  a  matter  which 
seems  to  me  to  touch  the  common  welfare  of  your,  and 
of  our,  church.  And  there  is  none  other  with  whom  I  can 
better  and  more  safely  lodge  what  I  have  to  say,  than 
with  yourself,  whom  I  know  to  be  moved  with  zeal  for 
God,  and  also  to  have  much  influence  with  his  serene 
majesty. 

'  The  occasion  of  this  writing  is  Isaac  Casaubon,  whose 
present  departure  from  hence  to  you  inspires  me  with  no 
little  anxiety.  He  is  assuredly  a  man  of  pith,  pious  and 
of  good  principle,  but  liable  to  be  turned  out  of  the  way 
by  his  fears,  and  his  irritable  temper.  It  is  about  three 
years  since  that  he  began  to  think  amiss  in  religion,  and 
to  incline  to  popery.  Some  few  heads  remained  which  he 
could  not  digest,  e.g.  the  communion  under  one  kind, 

1  Burney  MSS.  363.  '  Colomesii  Opera,  p.  531. 

Dd 

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402  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

papal  supremacy,  public  worship  in  an  unknown  tongue, 
worship  of  images,  works  of  supererogation  ;  these  things, 
in  which  he  continues  to  think  with  us,  restrained  him 
from  openly  leaving  us.  On  the  other  heads  of  con- 
troversy he  does  not  conceal  his  hatred  of  our  religion, 
which  he  abuses  to  the  catholics,  denouncing  it  as  a 
modern  invention  of  Calvin.  When  I  admonished  him 
on  the  subject,  he  would  not  take  it  from  me,  though  we 
are  old  and  intimate  friends.  The  origin  of  all  this 
mischief  is  a  quarrel  with  the  Genevese,  who,  he  says, 
as  parties  in  a  law  suit,  have  robbed  him  of  his  wife's 
portion.  From  that  day  he  began  to  inveigh  against  our 
ministers  in  general,  and  to  pour  his  venom  into  the  ear  of 
anyone  who  will  listen.  In  this  state  of  uncontrollable 
passion  cardinal  Perron  attacked  him  with  his  arguments, 
easily  worked  upon  a  character  of  no  steadiness,  and  in 
fine  very  nearly  shipwrecked  him.  He  used  to  have 
secret  meetings  with  the  cardinal,  who  set  him  upon 
reading  the  fathers.  Whatever  he  met  with  in  them 
which  seemed  to  go  against  us,  he  greedily  seized  upon. 
For  his  learning  in  philology  and  languages  is  truly  great, 
but  having  cultivated  his  memory  rather  than  his  judg- 
ment, he  is  deficient  in  clearsightedness,  and  in  apprehen- 
sion of  things,  while  his  innate  infirmity  of  purpose  makes 
him  ready  to  yield  to  the  opinions  of  those  with  whom  he 
is  conversing.  That  a  man  of  so  much  learning,  and  one 
whom  I  highly  esteem,  should  thus  go  to  the  bad,  has 
been  a  heavy  affliction  to  me.  I  have  endeavoured  what 
I  could  to  bring  him  back  to  sounder  views.  But  I  have 
had  no  success,  what  with  his  animosity  against  the  city  of 
Geneva,  and  the  urgent  instances  of  the  cardinal,  who 
knew  how  to  season  his  arguments  with  promises. 

'  The  invitation  of  the  king  of  England  arriving  at  this 
juncture,  was  therefore  most  opportune.  I  am  now  not 
without  hopes  that  by  converse  with  your  lordship,  and 
the  other  men  of  learning  in  your  country,  he  may  be  led 

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IX.]  LONDON.     16 10-16  J  4.  403 

back  into  the  right  way.  Time  and  removal  may  abate  his 
passion.  I  pray  you,  my  lord,  to  help  what  you  can 
towards  this  end.  I  would  venture  to  recommend  as  the 
safest  course  to  pursue  with  him,  that  he  be  engaged  by 
some  decent  preferment  to  write  on  ecclesiastical  history, 
and  in  refutation  of  Baronius.  Towards  this  he  has 
already  made  large  collections,  and  he  is  a  mighty  oppo- 
nent of  the  papal  claims.  Whatever  he  should  write  on 
this  head,  would  tend  to  edification.  Anyhow  I  beg  and 
entreat  you  to  secure  him  for  yourselves,  and  to  keep  him 
over  there ;  for  if  he  return  to  us  his  defection  is  certain. 
Certainly  he  did  pledge  himself  to  the  queen,  at  his  leave- 
taking,  to  come  back,  and  this  he  is  bound  to  do.  But  if 
he  can  obtain  a  settled  position  in  England  he  will  only*, 
return  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  off  his  household 
goods,  and  his  library,  which  is  very  extensive.  He  will 
be  no  small  acquisition  to  England,  being,  as  he  is, 
"  facile  princeps  "  in  the  republic  of  letters ;  we  shall  be 
released  from  a  perpetual  state  of  alarm  on  his  account, 
and  you  will  have  the  satisfaction  of  having  saved  a  soul 
on  the  verge  of  ruin.' 

If  this  letter  had  been  merely  one  of  theological  denun- 
ciation, it  would  have  deserved  no  more  attention  than  is 
given  by  men  of  sense  to  such  officious  delators  in  general. 
But  Peter  Du  Moulin  was  no  ordinary  man,  and  his  letter, 
with  all  its  ill  will  towards  him  who  is  the  subject  of  it, 
shows  a  shrewd  appreciation  of  character  and  situation. 
Nor,  indeed,  was  its  object  that  of  damaging  Casaubon. 
Du  Moulin  wanted,  what  he  says  he  wants,  to  get  Casau- 
bon out  of  Paris.  But  for  this  wish  which  he  avows  he  had 
private  reasons  of  his  own,  which  he  probably  did  not 
avow  to  himself.  Du  Moulin  was  a  man  of  distinguished 
ability,  and  powerful  eloquence.  He  was  a  successful 
disputant.  Casaubon,  with  all  his  learning,  had  cut  a  poor 
figure  in  the  Fontainebleau  conference.  Du  Moulin,  with 
no  reading  worth  speaking  of,  had  come  triumphant  out 

D  d  2 
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404 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


of  many  a  set  dispute  with  catholic  doctors.  When  a  man 
of  powerful  intellect  and  no  knowledge  talks  and  writes 
incessantly  on  matters  of  religion  and  morals,  there  is  but 
one  resource  for  him,  that  is,  to  maintain  that  religion  and 
morals  do  not  rest  upon  knowledge,  and  can  be  treated 
without  it.  This  is  what  Du  MouHn  did.  His  favourite 
doctrine  was,  that  scripture  was  so  plain  that  it  needed  no 
interpreter  but  each  man's  common  sense  ^-  If  he  looked 
into  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  it  was  not  to  use  them,  but 
to  find  expressions  which  he  could  declaim  against,  as 
deviating  from  the  standard  of  genevan  orthodoxy.  Know- 
ing, as  we  do,  Casaubon's  estimate  of  the  grammatical, 
critical,  and  collateral  knowledge  requisite  for  the  interpre- 
tation of  any  ancient  author,  we  may  imagine  how  he 
chafed  at  sitting  Sunday  after  Sunday  to  hear  these 
opinions  inculcated  with  all  the  force  of  Du  Moulin's 
eloquence  from  the  pulpit  at  Charenton,  and  how  indig- 
nant he  was  when  he  had  to  sit  and  hear  Cyprian  branded 
as  an  '  anabaptist.'  It  was  impossible  to  avoid  a  personal 
application  of  these  tirades  to  Isaac  Casaubon  as  he  sate 
there  with  his  bowed  form  and  pale  face,  bearing  the 
burden  of  all  the  learning  belonging  to  the  huguenot 
congregation.  Du  Moulin  was  aggravated  by  Casaubon's 
silent  disapproval ;  but  still  more  aggrieved  when  he 
heard  that  Casaubon  had  been  pointing  out  to  some 
friends  the  errors  of  some  of  Du  Moulin's  interpretations 
of  texts.  Du  Moulin  too  was  a  great  author.  He  had 
a  ready  pen,  and  writing  in  french,  his  books  were 
highly  appreciated  by  his  flock.  One  of  them,  his 
'  Defense  de  la  foi  catholique,'  had  been  annotated  by 
Casaubon  in  the  way  he  dealt  with  all  his  books,  and  many 
of  its  errors  pointed  out  on  the  margin.  This  book,  pub- 
lished in  1610,  had  been  a  good  deal  talked  of  in  protestant 

'  Ephem.  p.  824 :  '  Et  voce,  et  scripto  et  ex  ambone  declamare  solitus,  me 
audiente,  sacram  scripturam  nullo  habere  opus  interprete,  sed  omnia  sirapliciter,- 
Ut  scripta  sunt,  esse  accipienda.| 

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IX.]  LONDON,     i6iO-]6i4.  405 

circles  in  Paris,  and  Casaubon  had  not  concealed  his 
opinion  of  its  shallowness.  Du  Moulin's  ministerial  pres- 
tige was  endangered ;  he  went  to  Casaubon  and  demanded 
the  copy.  Casaubon  dared  not  refuse,  and  gave  it  up, 
begging  at  the  same  time  that '  he  would  take  the  remarks 
in  good  part  ^.'  This  was  in  October,  and  it  was  smarting 
under  this  rebuke  from  a  member  of  his  own  congregation, 
that  the  letter  to  Montagu  was  written.  It  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  Du  Moulin's  supremacy  over  his  flock,  and 
for  his  comfort  in  the  pulpit,  that  Casaubon  should  be  kept 
away  from  Paris  ^-  If  Jean  Hotman  is  to  be  believed,  Du 
Moulin  had  formerly,  when  in  England,  professed  very 
different  sentiments,  and  had  wished  that  the  doctrine  and 
discipHne  of  the  church  of  England  could  be  transplanted 
to  France.  He  was  now  restrained,  adds  Hotman,  from 
attacking  Casaubon  by  the  obligations  he  was  under  to  the 
king  and  his  ambassadors  ^.  Casaubon  never  knew  of  the 
secret  delation  on  the  part  of  Du  Mouhn,  of  which  he  had 
been  the  object.  Montagu  handed  the  letter  to  the  arch- 
bishop, who  discreetly  kept  it  to  himself.  But  Casaubon 
did  not  conceal  how  much  he  had  disapproved  of  Du 
Moulin's  preaching,  and  opinions.  He  writes  to  Madame 
Casaubon*,  '  I  have  heard  M.  du  Mouhn  maintain  proposi- 
tions which  I  detest,  and  shall  detest,  living  and  dying. 
The  theology  of  the  learned  prelates  in  England  is  quite 
opposed  to  his.' 


•  Ephem.  p.  765  :  '  Rogavit  sibi  dari  librum  Apologise,  etc.  quem  edidit,  in  quo 
ego  multa  notaveram  ipsius  peccata  magna.' 

2  Du  Moulin's  '  Defense  de  la  foi  catholique "...  runs  on  to  576  pages. 
There  seemed  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have  run  to  double  the  number. 
But  it  breaks  off  suddenly  at  the  place  his  nimble  pen  had  reached  at  5  p.m.  on 
the  fatal  14th  of  May :  '  La  morte  de  nostre  roy  semblable  a  un  grand  esclat  de 
tonnerre  nous  engourdit  la  main  d'estonnement.' 

=  Burney  mss.  367.  p.  23 :  '  Quant  a  nostre  M.  du  M.  (a  later  hand  has 
supplied  the  blank  with  '  Moulin ')  il  est  imprudent,  impudent,  et  ingrat,  tout 
ensemble.  II  a  appris  sa  meilleure  theologie  en  Angleterre  et  a  receu  trop 
de  bien  de  sa  Majesty  et  de  ses  Ambassadeurs  qu'il  ose  I'aitaquer  en  votre 
personne."  *  Burney  mss.  367.  ap.  Russell,  Ephem.  p.  1147. 


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4o6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Thus  losing,  or  alienating,  those  who  should  have  been 
his  friends,  he  had  to  submit  to  the  unwelcome  advances 
of  others  who  would  be  friends  with  Isaac  Casaubon,  be- 
cause he  was  a  friend  of  the  king  of  England.  It  is  the 
fate  of  all  men  whose  merits  have  gained  them  the  notice 
of  the  powerful,  that  the  preferment-hunters  seek  to  use 
them  for  their  purposes.  Of  course  Dominicus  Baudius 
was  early  in  the  field.  Having  known  Casaubon  as  a  boy 
at  Geneva,  and  having  occasionally  written  to  him  since,  it 
was  necessary  to  announce  to  his  old  friend  the  fact  of  his 
marriage  (1613).  It  was  also  evident  that  that  event  made 
it  necessary  that  he  should  be  provided  for.  Dominic 
is  confident  that  his  own  merits  must  sufficiently  re- 
commend him  to  the  king  of  England,  and  that  he  has 
only  to  show  himself  to  be  admitted  at  once  to  his  intimacy  ^. 
But  he  thinks  '  his  own  deserts  and  those  of  his  fore- 
fathers'  may  be  backed  by  Casaubon's  recommendation. 
The  good-natured  Casaubon  speaks  to  several  of  the 
nobles  about  Baudius ;  among  others  to  Sidney.  It  is 
not  enough.  He  must  speak  to  the  king.  Casaubon  does 
speak  to  the  king.  ^ '  King  has  been  heard  more  than 
once  to  express  himself  in  terms  highly  laudatory  of 
Baudius.  But  there  is  nothing  to  be  had.  It  is  not  the 
custom  of  the  english  to  call  from  other  countries  men  of 
distinguished  erudition.  Dictum  sapienti  sat.'  Even  this 
flat  assertion  might  not  have  stopped  Baudius  from  coming 
to  push  his  fortunes  in  England,  had  not  delirium  tremens 
closed  his  importunity  very  shortly  after  his  receipt  of  this 
reply  *- 

Lydius  writes  from  Holland*:  would  be  glad  of  any- 
thing; would  like  to  be  minister  of  the  dutch  church  in 

'  Baiidii  Epp.  p.  451  :  '  Mea  et  majorum  meorum  virtute  fretus  confido  me 
futurum  apud  t6v  KpaTovpra  inter  intimae  admissionis  amicos.' 

^  Ep.  853 ;  '  Non  est  mos  Anglorum,  ut  viros  eruditione  claros  aliunde 
accersant.' 

'  Baudius,  f  Aug.  24,  1613.     Chabanes  to  Casaubon,  Burney  MSS.  367.  8. 

*  Ep.  762. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  407 

London.  Lydius  has  to  be  put  off  by  the  same  assurance 
that  '  church  dignities  in  England  are  never  given  but  to 
native  enghsh,  that  the  number  of  theologians  in  England 
is  very  great,  for  all  students  at  the  universities  are 
theologians.  And  as  for  the  dutch  church  in  London,  the 
king  of  England  has  no  more  to  do  with  it  than  he  has 
with  any  church  in  Leyden,  or  the  Hague.' 

Cameron  writes  from  Bordeaux  ^ :  would  like  an  ap- 
pointment in  his  native  Scotland,  in  the  church,  of  which 
the  king  is,  under  God,  the  head.  '  I  cannot  doubt  that 
you,  who  are  so  high  in  favour  with  him,  can  easily  get  it 
done,  if  you  will  exert  yourself  ever  so  little.  I  was 
known  to  the  king  when  he  was  a  boy ;  and  only  three 
years  ago,  when  I  passed  through  England,  on  my  way 
hither,  I  was  graciously  received  by  him.  The  princess 
Elisabeth  is  not  ill-disposed  towards  me.  And  it  will  be 
very  creditable  to  you,  a  foreigner,  to  be  recommending  a 
countryman  of  the  king  for  his  favours.' 

Another  '  countryman  of  the  king's,'  Alexander  Hume, 
wanted  to  have  his  latin  grammar  recommended  to  James' 
notice.  Casaubon  does  not  toss  the  apphcation  into  his 
waste-basket,  but  answers  it  at  length,  declining  to  say 
anything  in  favour  of  the  grammar,  because  it  was 
founded  on  the  Ramist  system,  which  he  did  not  approve. 

Theodore  Canter,  who  had  got  himself  into  prison  in 
Holland,  by  his  own  fault,  hoped  Casaubon  would  move 
the  english  ambassador  to  intercede  in  his  behalf  For  a 
friend  whose  sons  had  been  his  pupils  at  Geneva,  and 
who  had  read  through  all  the  Greek  writers  ^  who  was 
now  in  evil  case,  however  much  to  blame,  Casaubon  is 
ready  to  do  what  he  could.  But  before  he  could  take 
up  the  case,  he  must  be  informed  more  fully  as  to  its 
merits. 

Some  sued  in  form  of  a  dedication.    Among  the  many 

1  Burney  mss.  363.  ap.  Russell,  Ephem.  p.  11 79. 
"  Scaligerana  s".  p.  42. 

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408  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

who  now  were  anxious  to  inscribe  their  books  with  the 
name  of  Isaac  Casaubon  may  be  mentioned  Caspar 
Barthius.  He  is  mentioned,  not  because  in  his  dedication 
of  his  'Auctores  Venatici,  Hanoviae,  1613,'  he  is  more 
fulsome  in  his  panegyric  than  the  rest,  but  because  he 
naively  avows,  in  concluding,  his  hope  that  he  may  ^ '  one 
day  visit  England,  and  enjoy  the  advantage  of  Casaubon's 
recommendation  in  the  court  of  your  serene  prince,  with 
whom  we  knov/  that  you  can  do  anything.' 

Nor  was  it  foreigners  only  that  he  was  to  help  to  some- 
thing. We  have  seen  ^  Carier  wanting  him  to  get  him  the 
deanery  of  Rochester,  and  Richard  Thomson  praying 
him  to  mollify  the  archbishop  in  his  favour.  Casaubon 
was  too  easily  fretted  by  many  things;  but  all  this  im- 
portunity does  not  extort  from  him  one  harsh  word 
against  the  suitors.  No  man  was  ever  more  indulgent  to 
all  the  liberties  which  acquaintance  can  take,  except 
when  they  took  from  him  his  time,  the  only  possession 
which  he  would  not  part  with  for  any  one. 

His  many  anxieties,  superadded  to  the  pull  of  his  daily 
task  on  Baronius,  and  sinking  health,  made  him  more 
and  more  dependent  on  Florence  Casaubon.  The  bond 
of  affection  which  had  united  husband  and  wife  from  the 
first,  had  been  drawn  closer  by  time,  and  common  sorrows. 
In  the  closing  years  of  Isaac's  life,  to  devotion  was  added 
dependence.  Next  to  Cod,  whose  presence  is  constant, 
and  to  whom  his  soul  is  daily  poured  in  pious  effusion, 
his  wife  is  the  thought  of  most  frequent  occurrence  in  the 
pages  of  the  diary.  Younger  and  stronger  in  his  native 
land,  he  had  watched  over,  nursed  and  protected  her. 
Weak,  prematurely  aged,  cast  away  in  a  barbarous 
country,  weighed  down  by  the  daily  grind  of  learned 
research,  the  parts  are  reversed  ;  he  is  become  dependent 

'  Ep.    Nuncupatoria :    '  Tua   commendatione   in   aula  serenissimi   monarchse 
tui,  apud  quern  nihil  non  posse  te  scimus.' 
'  See  above,  pp.  276,  351. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  409 

on  her.  Her  long  absences  in  France  are  severe  trials  to 
him.  He  sinks  under  the  weight  of  the  cares  which  then 
crowd  on  him \  How  bitter  is  the  parting!  How  tor- 
turing her  delay  to  return !  He  is  querulous ;  then  angry 
with  her  for  being  away,  though  he  sent  her  himself,  and 
on  urgent  business  ^  He  writes  her  a  letter  full  of 
reproaches.  '  How  can  she  stay  away  from  him  so  long, 
so  much  longer  than  there  was  any  necessity  for !'  Then 
he  tears  the  sheet  up,  and  distresses  himself  that  he  was 
so  inconsiderate.  The  disorders  in  the  household,  unruly 
children,  untrustworthy  servants,  increase  upon  his  hands ; 
^ '  and  you,  my  wife,  who  ought  to  be  governing  this 
family,  are  away  from  me.'  There  comes  the  hot  July  of 
1613,  and  he  is  equally  alarmed  lest  she  should  have  set 
off  on  the  journey.  Then  he  hears  that,  so  far  from 
coming  back,  she  was  luxuriating  in  the  country  at 
Grigny.  '  What  can  she  be  doing  at  Grigny  when  her 
presence  is  so  much  needed  at  home*.'  Great  part  of 
many  days  is  lost  out  of  pure  fret  and  heartache,  because 
she  does  not  come  or  does  not  write®.  He  sends  his 
sons'  tutor,  Wedderburn,  to  escort  her  over.  He  cannot 
endure  the  suspense,  he  is  fretting  hinself  to  death  ^. 
Then  he  hears  she  is  coming  by  another  route. 
Wedderburn  will  miss  her.  He  must  go  himself.  But 
the  '  Exercitationes'  are  in  the  press,  and  the  daily  tale 
must  be  delivered  to  the  printer.  August  31,  he  sends  a 
servant  to  Dover,  for  Florence  has  not  learnt  a  word  of 
Enghsh.  She  had  already  left  Dover,  and  September  i, 
while  he  is  deep  in  his  writing,  he  looks  up,  and  she  is 

'  Ephem  p.  987  :  '  Deus  bone,  deiicio  sub  onere  curarum,  et  molestiarum,  quas 
affert  mihi  uxoris  absentia.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  977 :  '  Urgebant  negotia,  quae  omnino  postulabant  ut  istud  iter 
uxor  susciperet.' 

^  Ephem.  p.  996 :  '  Tu  abes,  mea  uxor,  quse  domum  regere  debuisti.' 

*  Ephem.  p.  looi. 

°  Ephem.  p.  1002 :  '  Abstulit  magnam  partem  diei  mcEStitia  et  soHcitudo  tristis 
de  uxore  tamdiu  absente.' 

'  Ephem.  p   1009 :  '  Desiderio  pio  pise  uxoris  dudum  tabasco.' 

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41 0  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Standing  by  his  side.  Oh  happy  day.  Little  does  she 
know  how  short  a  time  she  is  to  have  him  !  She  has  just 
returned  in  time  to  save  Uttle  James,  the  enghsh  son,  who 
was  being  starved  by  the  wet  nurse  with  whom  he  had 
been  placed  in  the  country.  They  are  separated  no  more, 
till  all  too  soon  the  day  of  final  parting  takes  him  away 
before  his  time. 

Casaubon  had  come  over  to  this  country  in  October, 
1610.  Florence  did  not  join  him  till  February,  1611.  She 
returned  to  France  April  29,  and  was  absent  nearly  six 
months.  His  instructions  on  this  occasion  are  character- 
istic, containing  not  a  word  relating  to  his  pecuniary 
affairs,  on  account  of  which  Madame  Casaubon  was 
going ;  his  anxieties  are  all  for  his  children,  his  books,  and 
especially  his  papers^.  '  Je  vous  recommande  nos  enfants 
que  en  tout  douceur  les  instruisez  a  la  piete,  et  aux 
bonnes  mceurs,  et  si  ne  venez  tost,  m'envoyer  quelcun. 

'Je  vous  recommande  mes  livres,  que  personne  du 
monde  ne  les  manie,  ni  touche,  que  vous  et  mon  nepueu. 
Faictes  que  au  plustost  je  les  aye  par  voye  seure,  et  le 
tout  par  le  conseil  de  nos  amis,  surtout  de  M.  le  President 
de  Thou,  et  de  M.  I'ambassadeur  d'Angleterre.  Vous 
scavez  que  puisque  il  nous  fault  icy  demeurer  quelque 
tems,  il  m'est  impossible  de  me  passer  d'eux,  et  surtout  de 
mon  coffre  oil  sont  mes  papiers. 

'  Si  nos  amis  vous  conseillent  de  haster  vostre  retour,  il 
faudra  faire  venir  mes  livres  avec  vos  hardes  par  navire 
expres.  Mais  quant  a  Isaac,  je  desire  qu'il  vienne  avec 
mon  coffre.' 

During  this  absence,  he  writes  to  John,  the  catholic  son, 
entreating,  commanding,  him  ^  to  find  his  mother  out,  and 
if  she  is  at  Grigny  to  take  out  his  letters  to  her  himself. 
'  I  have  heard  nothing  from  her  these  two  months,  and  am 
in  tortures  of  suspense ;  my  life  is  hardly  bearable ! ' 

'  Burney  Mss.  367.  ap.  Russell,  Ephem.  p.  1147. 
^  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  mss.  23101. 

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IX.]  LONDON.     1610-1614.  41  r 

Florence's  second  visit  to  France  was  from  May  3  to 
September  i,  1613.  The  return  to  her  charge  of  her  who, 
through  the  trials  of  eight-and-twenty  years,  had  grown  to 
be  the  guardian  angel  of  the  house,  protected  Isaac  from 
many  vexations,  but  could  not  save  him  from  the  doom 
which  was  now  rapidly  approaching. 


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X. 

LAST  ILLNESS;    DEATH; 
CHARA  CTERISTIC. 

1614. 

We  have  observed  that  of  Isaac  Casaubon's  mental 
character  more  is  known  to  us  than  of  most  men  who 
lived  so  long  ago.  It  happens  also,  that  of  his  bodily 
organisation  we  have  a  memoir,  remarkable  for  its 
diagnostic  skill,  from  the  pen  of  Raphael  Thoris^,  his 
physician,  of  whom  Casaubon  justly  thought  most  highly. 
The  language  of  this  memorandum  may  be  the  language 
of  an  imperfect  physiology;  but  for  all  purposes  of 
elucidation  of  character,  and  mental  history,  it  is  as  com- 
plete as  if  it  had  been  written  by  a  modern  pathologist. 

Isaac  Casaubon  was  the  martyr  of  learning.  While  it 
is  not  probable  that  he  would  have  survived  to  a  great  age, 
it  is  clear  that  his  premature  death,  in  his  fifty-sixth  year, 
was  brought  upon  him  by  his  habits  of  life,  unintermitted 
study  and  late  vigils.  Varanda,  the  medical  professor  at 
Montpellier,  had  told  him,  in  1597,  playfully  but  with 
meaning,  that  ^ '  his  career  would  be  like  that  of  Achilles, 
glorious  but  brief.'  Scaliger,  who  had  never  seen  him, 
knew  of  him  as  ^ '  tout  courbe  d'estude.'  Baudius  had 
conjured  him  *  to  have  some  thought  of  his  health.     But 

^  Raphaelis  Thorii   '  Epistola  de  Isaac!  Casauboni  morbi  mortisque  causa,' 

[and   '  De  morbo   et   morte  Isaaci  Casauboni  narratio '].     A  Leyden  printer 

published  the  first  piece  in  1619.  Both  are  found  in  Gronovius'  collection, 
from  which  Van  Almeloveen  reprinted  them  in  1709,  adding  an  engraved 
representation  of  the  diseased  part. 

^  Ep.  132.  '  Scaligerana  2".  p.  45. 

*  Baudii  epp.  p.  116. 

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LAST  ILLNESS.     1614.  413 

friends  are  so  apt  to  think  that  any  one,  who  studies  at  all, 
studies  too  much,  that  remonstrances  on  this  head  go  for 
nothing.  When  seriously  urged  to  intermit  his  appli- 
cation, and  allow  himself  a  holiday,  Casaubon  ^  used  to 
say  'that  he  had  tried  that  remedy,  and  it  had  always 
done  him  harm ;  that  he  was  never  worse  than  when  he 
was  doing  nothing,  and  so  compelled  to  think  of  his 
ailments.' 

This,  his  own  account,  is  probably  the  true  account  of 
the  case.  The  mind  was  destroying  the  organism,  yet  the 
mental  excitement  or  occupation  was,  at  the  same  time, 
what  kept  the  frame  going  so  long.  He  could  not  rest. 
The  agitation  of  the  spirits  was  necessary  to  life.  As 
positive  disease  established  itself,  and  his  general  bodily 
condition  gradually  sank,  he  would  have  become  hypo- 
chondriac, had  he  turned  his  thoughts  towards  himself 
and  his  ailments.  Instead  of  anxiously  guarding  his 
own  organic  sensations,  this  man,  who  was  dying  daily, 
was  utterly  careless  of  himself.  He  not  only  never 
complained,  but  never  nursed  himself,  till  actually  driven 
from  his  books  by  fainting  or  by  fever  ^-  The  ever- 
growing derangement  of  the  functions,  and  degradation 
of  tissue,  made  itself  felt  in  a  growing  mental  depression, 
which  however  turned  outward  rather  than  inward.  This 
depression  had  taken,  from  the  first,  the  direction  of 
devotional  abandonment.  The  lowered  nervous  force  in 
the  sensibilities,  combined  with  calvinistic  theory  in  the 
understanding,  submerges  the  hopes  and  affections ;  tends 
to  withdraw  them  from  life,  and  fix  them  upon  the  unseen. 
The  active  energies,  being  insufficiently  called  upon, 
become  enfeebled.  He  became,  every  year,  less  able  to 
cope  with   the  worry  of  life.    A  gloom  seemed  to  be 

'  Thorii  Narratio  :  '  Mihi  antehac  imperatum  otium,  a  me  qusesitum,  sed 
conatu  irrito,  imo  pernicioso.' 

^  Ibid.  :  '  Homini  sul  negligent!,  in  studiis  attento,  ne  conquerendi  quidem 
otium  erat.' 

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414  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

settling  on  all  external  things.  He  complains^  that 
wherever  he  looked,  nothing  but  melancholy  objects  met 
his  view.  He  writes  to  Heinsius  ^  in  1612,  '  The  deaths 
of  so  many  of  my  friends  remind  me  to  think  of  my  own, 
which  I  do  constantly.  Whenever  my  hour  comes,  I 
shall  be  well  pleased  to  leave  a  world  in  which  iniquity 
abounds.  Turn  your  eyes  to  what  quarter  of  Europe  you 
will,  you  will  see  what  must  needs  fill  you  with  anxiety. 
And  nowhere  is  there  any  prospect  of  better  things,  all 
grows  worse  and  worse.'  The  least  thing,  a  thunder 
storm  coming  on  while  he  is  in  the  cathedral,  throws  him 
into  a  state  of  nervous  anxiety  ^.  Walter  Scott  had  the 
first  warning  of  his  own  break-down  in  similar  symptoms. 
He  enters  in  his  diary,  March  13,  1826  * :  'I  am  not  free 
from  a  sort  of  gloomy  fits,  with  a  fluttering  of  the  heart 
and  depression  of  spirits,  just  as  if  I  knew  not  what  was 
going  to  befall  me.  I  can  sometimes  resist  this  success- 
fully, but  it  is  better  to  evade  it.'  In  Isaac  Casaubon,  the 
same  cause,  an  overdriven  brain,  was  now  producing  the 
same  inevitable  results. 

Nature  had  given  him  a  puny  and  infirm  frame. 
Though  not  so  little  as  some  other  celebrated  men  of 
learning,  as,  e.  g.  Pietro  Pomponazzo,  as  Melanchthon  or 
Lobeck, — Casaubon  was  a  man  of^  small  stature,  'cor- 
pusculum  tanto  ingenio  impar,'  says  Thoris.  The  same 
observant  physician,  when  introduced  to  him  in  1610,  was 
astonished  to  see  that  ""such  exalted  wisdom  could  be 
lodged  in  such  a  wretched  tenement.'     It  did  not  need 

'  Ephem.  p.  954 :  '  Nihil  video  praeter  tristia.'  '  Ep.  846. 

'  Ephem.  p.  846 :  '  Cum  essem  in  ecclesia  Paulina,  tempestas  repente  exorta 
me  anxium  habuit.'  '  Lockhart,  Life  of  Scott. 

'  Clarendon,  Life,  by  himself,  i.  55 :  '  Mr.  Chillingworth  was  of  a  stature 
little  superior  to  Mr.  Hales,  and  it  was  an  age  in  which  there  were  many  great 
and  wonderful  men  of  that  size.'  For  noticing  so  'trivial'  a  circumstance, 
the  historian  is  taken  to  task  by  Isaac  Disraeli,  Curiosities  of  Literature, 
p.  282. 

°  Thorii  Narratio :  '  In  tarn  humili  hospitio  tam  excelsam  sapientiam 
habitare.' 

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X.]  LAST  ILLNESS.     1614.  415 

Thoris's  experienced  eye  to  read  the  sentence  of  death 
in  the  emaciated  frame,  the  sunken  chest,  the  stooping 
shoulders,  the  wasted  features,  the  prominent  cheek  bone, 
the  dark  ring  round  the  eye,  the  hectic  flush,  the  ac- 
cumulation of  phlegm  in  the  air-passages,  the  hacking 
cough.  '  I  foresaw  ^  that  his  new  calling  in  the  service 
of  his  majesty,  and  his  own  greediness  of  work,  would 
precipitate  the  catastrophe.'  Isaac  became  Thoris's 
patient,  and  the  worse  symptoms  then  disclosed  to  him 
verified  the  diagnostic  of  his  eye, — the  fevered  pulse,  the 
labouring  heart,  the  sleepless  unrefreshing  nights,  the 
long  standing  of  his  cough. 

It  must  have  been  obvious  to  everyone  that  he  was 
dying.  James  must  have  seen  it,  when  he  was  urging, 
like  a  taskmaster,  the  progress  of  the  '  Exercitationes.' 
The  worst  however  was  not,  and  could  not,  be  known  till 
the  '  post  mortem.'  Some  twelve  months  before  the  end, 
there  appeared  symptoms  which  entirely  baffled  the 
medical  attendants,  Mayerne  and  Thoris.  The  symptoms 
indicated  calculus;  yet,  on  examination,  the  existence  of 
calculus  could  not  be  established.  During  the  whole  of 
the  time  that  he  was  working  on  Baronius,  he  was  suffer- 
ing tortures  from  a  difficulty  in  the  urinary  passages.  An 
incessant  desire  to  void  urine  was  accompanied  with  the 
impossibility  of  doing  so.  A  protuberant  swelling  of  the 
left  side  made  its  appearance.  The  doctors,  not  knowing 
what  to  order,  prescribed  the  usual  remedies  for  renal 
disease,  riding,  and  the  Spa  waters.  He  proposed  to 
drink  the  waters  on  the  spot,  but  could  not  endure  the 
thought  of  being  again  in  a  catholic  country,  and  therefore 
consults  Grotius  if  there  ^  be  not  some  town  of  the  states 

'  Thorii  Narratio :  '  Veritas,  ne,  ut  accidit,  odio  quietis,  laboris  dulcedine,  in 
novo  studiorum  campo,  in  tanti  regis  oculis,  homo  impiger  exsangue  corpusculum 
cursu  concitato  ad  aeternam  quietem  praecipitaret.' 

"  Burmann,  Syll.  a.  433;  Grotius  to  Heinsius:  '  Casaubonum  jam  ssepe 
ut  ad  nos  transcurrat,  invito,  et  facturum  puto,  et  magis  quia  Spadanas 
aquas  adire  jubetur  a  medicis.'    Cf.  Cas.  ep.  933. 

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41 6  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

near  Spa,  where  he  can  reside,  and  have  the  waters 
brought  him. 

This  was  in  1612.  Even  in  November  1613,  his  mental 
vigour  deluding  him  as  to  his  physical  powers,  Casaubon 
was  projecting  a  visit  to  Heinsius  at  Leyden^.  And  in 
June,  1614,  when  the  end  was  imminent,  he  is  contem- 
plating a  second  part  of  the  '  Exercitations  ^,'  '  in  which 
I  design  great  things,  viz.  the  assertion  of  genuine  anti- 
quity.' 

In  this  condition,  on  June  24,  1614,  his  friends,  thinking 
to  benefit  him  by  a  drive  into  the  country,  took  him  to 
Greenwich.  The  party  consisted  of  Isaac,  the  physician 
Thoris,  Barclay,  and  their  three  wives.  They  went  in  a 
coach  ^.  The  jolting  over  the  uneven  pavement  of  the 
city  shook  the  poor  sufferer  cruelly.  He  constrained 
himself,  however,  to  sit  through  the  meal,  and  himself 
proposed  a  walk  through  the  park  after  it,  during  which 
he  was  cheerful  and  instructive  in  talk  as  ever.  When  he 
got  home,  he  thought  he  felt  better.  But  he  passed  the 
night  in  cruel  torture,  voiding  calculi,  blood,  and  purulent 
urine.  When  Thoris  came  to  see  him  in  the  morning, 
Isaac  said,  '  I  am  like  Theophrastus,  dying  of  a  holiday ; 
when  Theophrastus  had  passed  his  hundredth  year,  he 
went  to  his  nephew's  wedding,  and  gave  up  a  day's  study 
to  do  it.  But  he  never  studied  more,  he  died  of  it.'  Thoris 
and  Mayerne  were  in  constant  attendance.  Thoris  wished 
to  attend  him  as  a  friend,  and  refused  his  tendered  fee  *. 
When  Casaubon  insisted  he  took  it,  saying  that  '  he  could 
not  stand  in  the  way  of  a  patient's  wish  to  exercise  the 
virtue   of   gratitude.'      Nothing   could   be  done,   but    to 

'  Ep.  925. 

'  Ep.  927  :  '  Si  dabit  Christus  vitam,  magna  moliemur  in  proxima  parte,  et 
veram  antiquitatem  summa  fide  et  diligentia  asseremus.' 

'  Thorii  Narratio :  '  Vectus  rheda  per  duras  paviraenti  Londinensis  salebras, 
qua  civitas  longissime  pertenditur.' 

*  Burney  mss.  367  p.  137 :  '  Ne  videar  velle  tibi  pulcerrimae  virtutis  (i.  e. 
gratitude)  ansam  praeripere,  accipio  aaTrjpiov  libenter,' 

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X.]  DEATH.     1614.  417 

mitigate  his  sufferings  by  the  hot  bath  and  bleeding.  He 
sustained  the  combat  with  death  amid  dreadful  torments, 
borne  with  that  entire  resignation  to  the  divine  will,  which 
might  have  been  expected  from  one  whose  life  had  been 
one  prolonged  devotion.  His  one  regret  was,  that  he 
must  leave  his  work  on  church  history  unfinished.  His 
words  latterly  became  inaudible,  but  it  could  be  perceived 
that  he  was  holding  converse  with  that  God,  whom  he  had 
never  forgotten  for  a  single  hour  of  his  life.  He  lingered 
thus  for  more  than  a  fortnight.  On  Friday,  July  12  (July 
I,  o.  s.),  he  received  the  eucharist  at  the  hands  of  the 
bishop  of  Ely.  After  the  ceremony,  he  signified  his  wish 
to  have  the  '  Nunc  dimittis '  read  aloud,  and  he  accom- 
panied the  reader  with  failing  voice.  He  had  his  children 
brought  to  his  bedside,  gave  them  his  blessing,  one  by 
one,  and  straitly  charged  them  not  to  follow  the  example 
of  their  elder  brother,  but  to  continue  in  the  religion  in 
which  they  had  been  brought  up  ^  At  5  p.m.  he  ceased 
to  breathe  ^. 

After  death  was  discovered,  what  no  diagnosis  could 
have  detected,  a  monstrous  malformation  of  the  vesica. 
The  bladder  itself  was  of  natural  size  and  healthy.  But 
an  opening  in  its  left  side  admitted  into  a  second,  or 
supplementary  bladder.  This  sack  was  at  least  six  times 
as  large  as  the  natural  bladder,  and  was  full  of  mucous 
calculous  matter.  The  malformation  was  congenital,  but 
had  been  aggravated  by  sedentary  habits,  and  inattention 
to  the  calls  of  nature,  while  the  mind  of  the  student  was 
absorbed  in  study  and  meditation. 

Much  sympathy  was  shown  him  during  his  illness.  The 
king  sent  ^  him  an  assurance  that  his  pension  should  be 
continued  to  Madame  Casaubon  for  her  life,  and  that  he 

'  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  91. 

2  Besides  Thoris's  letter,  an  account  of  Isaac  Casaubon's  last  moments  was 
written  by  Andrewes  to  Heinsius.  A  copy  of  the  bishop's  letter  is  in  Advers. 
torn.  9,  from  which  it  was  printed  by  Bliss  in  his  edition  of  Andrewes'  Works, 
II.  xlv.  '  Birch,  Court  and  Times  of  James  i,  i.  332. 

E  e 

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41 8  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

would  provide  for  the  future  of  one  of  his  sons.  This  part 
of  the  promise  received  a  speedy  performance.  A  royal 
missive  had  already,  April  13,  1614,  been  sent  to  the  dean 
and  chapter  of  Christ  Christ,  Oxford,  requiring  them 
' '  to  admitt  a  sonne  of  Isaak  Casaubon  into  the  rome  of  a 
scholler  of  the  foundation  of  that  house,  that  should  first 
become  voide.'  Accordingly,  on  August  5,  Meric  was 
admitted  to  a  studentship,  which  he  held  for  thirteen 
years  ^. 

As  Isaac  had  designed  to  send  his  son  to  Leyden,  we 
may  perhaps  infer  that  he  was  not  altogether  satisfied  with 
what  he  had  seen  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  But  he  had 
acquiesced  in  the  king's  decision,  and  it  had  been  arranged 
that  Meric  was  to  spend  some  time  at  Christ  Church, 
before  he  travelled  abroad  to  continental  universities  ^. 

Isaac  Casaubon  was  buried  in  the  abbey ;  *  '  six  bishops, 
two  deans,  and  almost  the  whole  clergy  of  the  metropoHs,' 
followed  the  body.  The  funeral  sermon^  was  preached 
by  the  bishop  of  Lichfield,  Overall.  The  grave  where  his 
body  was  laid  was  at  the  entrance  of  S.  Benedict's 
chapel.  For  many  years  there  was  no  monument  to 
commemorate  him,  till  one  was  supphed  by  the  pious 
remembrance  of  a  private  friend,  Thomas  Morton,  then 
become  (1632)  bishop  of  Durham ". 

The  assertion  of  the  latin  inscription,  that  Casaubon's 
books  will  outlive  the  marble  monument,  is  scarcely  hkely 
to  be  true.  The  inscription,  doubtless  composed  by 
Morton  himself,  is  in  better  taste  than  many  of  that  period, 

'  State  paper,  James  i,  docquet. 

°  Dean's  entrance  book :  '  Adm'*.  Aug.  5.  Meric  Casaubon,  Callus,  Gen.  F. 
18.'     Meric  was  born  May  4,  1599,  n.  s.,  and  was  therefore  just  fifteen. 

^  Ep.  955 :  '  Filii  mei  missionem  ad  vos  regis  serenissimi  voluntas  re- 
tardavit,  cui  placuit  ut  in  acaderaia  Oxoniensi  aliquamdiu  maneret,  priusquam 
transmarinas  academias  adiret.' 

*  Andrewes  to  Heinsius,  ubi  sup. 

°  I  cannot  find  that  the  sermon  has  been  preserved. 

"  It  was  by  Stone,  and  cost  £60,  The  receipt  for  the  amount  is  in  Brit.  Mus. 
Addit.  Mss, 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  419 

and  the  bishop  is  not  answerable  for  the  vulgar  xto,  as  his 
xpo  is  still  visible  beneath,  as  Mr.  Scrivener^  has  pointed 
out.  Fuller  observes  that  '  his  tomb  is  not  in  the  east,  or 
poetical,  side,  where  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Drayton,  are 
interred,  but  on  the  west,  or  historical,  side  of  the  aisle.' 
'  Casaubon's  tomb  was  thus,'  says  dean  Stanley  ^,  '  the  first 
in  a  new  and  long  succession.  Isaac  Walton,  forty 
years  afterwards,  wandering  through  the  south  transept, 
scratched  his  well-known  monogram  on  the  marble,  with 
the  date  1658,  earliest  of  those  inscriptions  of  names  of 
visitors,  which  have  since  defaced  so  many  a  sacred  space 
in  the  abbey.  O  si  sic  omnia!  We  forgive  the  Greek 
soldiers  who  recorded  their  journey  on  the  foot  of  the 
statue  at  Ipsambul ;  the  Platonist  who  has  left  his  name  in 
the  tomb  of  Rameses  at  Thebes ;  the  roman  emperor  who 
has  carved  his  attestation  of  Memnon's  music  on  the 
colossal  knees  of  Amenophis.  Let  us  in  like  manner 
forgive  the  angler  for  this  mark  of  himself  in  Poets' 
corner.' 

A  few  days  before  his  death  Casaubon  had  made  a 
will  *.  He  leaves,  '  of  the  goods  which  the  Lord  hath" lent 
me,'  to  his  wife,  to  choose  between  taking  the  half,  or 
betaking  herself  to  her  contract  of  marriage.  To  each  of 
his  daughters  he  gives  200  crowns,  the  residue  of  his 
estate  being  divided  equally  among  all  his  children,  John 
excepted,  who  was  provided  for  by  a  convert's  pension. 
But  that  this  exclusion  might  not  be  construed  as  a 
penalty,  he  leaves  John  a  cup,  value  thirty  crowns.  M'. 
Scaliger's  cup  is  left  to  '  that  son  who,  walking  in  the  fear 
of  God,  shall  be  fittest  to  sustain  my  family.'  Florence  is 
sole  executrix. 

Florence  Casaubon,  as  soon  as  she  had  settled  her 
affairs,  returned  to  France.    James  acted  most  liberally 

'  Codex  BezEe,  praef.  p.  43. 

^  Memorials  of  Westminster,  p.  317. 
*  See  it  in  Appendix,  note  A. 

E  e  3 

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430  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

towards  her^,  and,  notwithstanding  her  antipathy  to  the 
country  and  to  our  tongue,  she  came  back  to  end  her  days 
in  London.  In  spite  of  the  many  attempts  of  the  doctors 
to  kill  her  with  the  lancet^,  she  survived  her  husband  one- 
and-twenty  years.  She  was  buried  in  the  cloisters  of 
Westminster  Abbey,  March  ii,  1635^. 

The  catholic  party  had  continued  to  beHeve  that  Isaac 
Casaubon  was  at  heart  a  catholic,  and  that  the  death-bed 
would  extort  from  him  the  confession  which  self-interest 
had  suppressed  during  life.  The  french  ambassador  sent 
a  nobleman  to  him  to  put  the  question  direct^,  '  In  what 
religion  he  professed  to  die  *  ? '  '  Then  you  think,  my 
lord,'  was  the  answer,  'that  I  have  been  all  along  a  dis- 
sembler in  a  matter  of  the  greatest  moment,'  expressing 
at  the  same  time  his  horror  of  such  deceit. 

The  ministers  of  the  french  church  in  London  were  in 
constant  attendance.  If  Casaubon  received  the  eucharist 
on  the  last  day  from  the  hands  of  an  english  bishop,  he 
could  do  this  without  giving  umbrage  to  the  french 
ministers,  on  the  score  of  the  intimate  friendship  which 
subsisted  between  himself  and  Andrewes.  And  before 
the  rise  of  the  Laudian  school,  the  english  church  and  the 
reformed  churches  of  the  continent  mutually  recognised 
each  other  as  sisters  °. 

Scioppius  boasted  that  he  had  killed  Casaubon  by  his 
'  Holofernes.'  The  wonder  is  that  with  such  an  organisation 
he  should  have  survived  his  fifty-fifth  birthday.  Thoris, 
as  has  been  said,  believed  that  the  mind  sustained  the 

'  Comm.  in  Polyb.  (1617),  praef.  p.  10 :  '  Majestatis  tuse  humanitate  sus- 
tentata.' 

^  See  Ephem.  pp.  444.  516. 

^  Register  of  Westminster  Abbey  ;  '  burials  in  church  and  chapels.' 

*  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  91 :  '  Deinde  rem  ipsam  vehementer  detestatus  et 
aboinjnatus  est.'  The  words  'rem  ipsam'  are  to  be  understood  only  of  an 
act  of  dissimulation. 

°  During  Elizabeth's  reign  the  English  embassy  in  Paris  had  no  chaplain, 
and  the  ambassador  attended  the  reformed  prSche  at  Charenton.  See  con- 
versation of  lord  Leicester  with  Laud,  in  Blencowe,  Sydney  papers,  p.  261. 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC. 


431 


frame :  what  the  muscular  fibre  was  unequal  to,  the  flow 
of  energy  from  the  brain  supplied  i.  He  was  carried  on 
by  the  ardour  and  passion  of  the  work  which  was  consum- 
ing his  strength. 

It  would  be  more  plausible  to  say  that  Casaubon  killed 
himself  over  the  '  Exercitations  on  Baronius.'  Mere  intel- 
lectual labour,  not  pushed  beyond  fatigue,  would  not 
appear  to  be  destructive  of  vital  energy.  What  depresses 
the  powers  of  Ufe  is  prolonged  labour  when  combined 
with  anxiety.  And  anxiety  is  inseparable  from  the  effort 
of  composition.  Whether  the  instrument  of  composition 
be  a  pen  or  a  brush,  whether  the  materials  be  facts,  figures, 
harmonies,  the  effort  to  combine  the  whole  on  a  given 
point  exercises  an  exhausting  influence,  which  the  mere 
accumulation  of  the  data  as  they  occur,  does  not.  The 
composition  of  the  '  Exercitations '  made  this  demand  on 
Casaubon's  shattered  strength.  There  was  incessant 
effort  to  combine  all  the  extant  textual  data  upon  the 
point  in  hand ;  the  imperative  necessity  pressing  on  his 
mind,  that  his  criticism,  if  it  were  to  be  worth  anything, 
should  exhaust  the  authorities.  Casaubon  early  noticed 
his  own  disinclination  to  write  ^.  While  reading  afforded 
him  the  keenest  pleasure  of  which  he  was  susceptible,  he 
took  pen  in  hand  reluctantly.  As  Burnet  ^  says  of  bishop 
Lloyd,  '  He  did  not  lay  out  his  learning  with  the  same 
diligence  that  he  laid  it  in.'    The  cerebral  energy,  ex- 


'  It  is  possible  that  this  biological  theory  was  popularised  in  medicine,  when 
medicine  was  classical,  by  its  being  the  traditional  account  of  Aristotle's  case. 
See  Censorinus,  Dies  nat.  14  ;  '  Naturalem  stomachi  infirmitatem,  crebrasque 
morbidi  corporis  offensiones,  adeo  virtute  animi  diu  sustentasse  (Aristotelem) 
ut  magis  rairum  sit  ad  annos  sexaginta  tres  vitam  protulisse,  quam  ultra  non 
pertullsse.' 

^  Ep.  s66 :  '  Quotidie  adolescit  in  nobis  oicvoi  scribendi,  et  otii  desiderium 
ad  studia  sapientiee  et  philologise.'  Ep.  mi:  '  Nos  infinita  et  axpaTrj!  quaedam 
aliquid  semper  indies  addiscendi  libido  facit  in  scribendo  saepe  omissiores.  segre 
impetramus  a  nobis,  ut  scribendis  iis,  quae  semel  observavimus,  operam  et 
terapus  impendamus.' 

*  Own  Times,  1.  345. 


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442  ISAAC  CASAVBON.  [Sect. 

hausted  by  prolonged  attention,  was  seldom  exuberant 
enough  for  the  higher  effort  of  combination. 

When  he  had  written,  he  was  dissatisfied  with  the 
result  ^-  His  dissatisfaction  was  not  with  the  manner  or 
the  style,  but  with  the  incompleteness  of  his  work.  If 
he  had  had  more  time,  he  could  have  made  more 
research ^  'I  have  the  goodwill;  what  I  have  always 
lacked  is  leisure,  and  freedom  from  anxiety,  defects  of 
which  my  writings  bear  too  manifest  trace.'  Almost  a 
formula  for  the  beginning  of  his  letters  is  '  etsi  negotiis 
obruor,  et  nutat  valetudo.'  One  might  think  he  had  the 
business  of  a  bank,  or  a  public  office,  on  his  shoulders. 
Yet  it  was  not  so.  He  had  probably  as  large  a  share  of 
leisure  as  can  be  secured  by  any  man  who  does  not 
withdraw  into  a  solitary  cell.  But  when  the  brain  is 
preoccupied  by  other  currents,  and  the  energy  is  drawn 
off  into  books,  calls  for  efforts  of  external  attention  alarm 
and  distress. 

For  Casaubon's  aims  no  leisure  would  have  sufficed. 
Other  effort  has  a  limit,  but  in  research  the  horizon 
recedes  as  we  advance,  and  is  no  nearer  at  sixty  than  it 
was  at  twenty.  As  the  power  of  endurance  weakens  with 
age,  the  urgency  of  the  pursuit  grows  more  intense.  It  is 
in  vain  that  moralists  warn  antiquaries  ^  to  remember  the 
shortness  of  life.  It  is  better  to  write  nothing  than 
to  produce  incomplete  work.  And  research  is  always 
incomplete. 

Casaubon  killed  himself  over  the  '  Exercitations.'  With 
his  mal-organisation,  his  life  could  not  have  been  long, 
but  excessive  labour,  joined  with  mental  anxiety,  hastened 


'  Ephem.  p.  942 :  'Qusedam  hodie,  sed  quas  mox  displicuerunt.' 

^  Suetonius,  Tib.  65.  comment.  -.  '  Animus  non  deest ;  voluntas  etiam  superest ; 

otium  Kal  t&  A/^epi/ivov  hactenus  semper  defuerunt,  quod  nostra  scripta  produnt 

nimis.' 

'  Hearne,  in  the  Rambler,  no.  71 :  'It  is  the  business  of  a  good  antiquary,  as 

of  a  good  man,  to  have  mortality  always  before  him.' 


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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  423 

the  end.  '  Beginning/  says  Thoris  \  '  in  the  evening  of 
life,  and  with  shattered  constitution,  an  undertaking  vast, 
arduous,  and  "  de  longue  haleine,"  he  pursued  it  with  an 
energy  and  an  assiduity  of  toil  which  younger  men  ought 
not  to  venture  to  imitate.  He  possessed  every  mental 
endowment  required  for  the  performance ;  he  had  abundant 
material  accumulated.  What  he  wanted  was  time.  He 
had  begun,  as  Crassus  said  to  Deiotarus,  "  to  build  at  the 
eleventh  hour."  But  a  man  whose  thoughts  were  on  eter- 
nity, who  lived  only  in  mental  energy,  Casaubon  reckoned 
not  the  number  of  his  years,  felt  not  the  encroachment 
of  age,  or  the  sap  of  health,  or  the  decay  of  his  body.' 

All  men  of  real  science  have  probably  felt  something 
of  what  Newton  has  expressed,  the  painful  contrast  of  the 
infinity  of  nature,  and  the  insignificance  of  any  one  man's 
knowledge  of  it.  But  the  same  is  true  of  literature. 
Wyttenbach  has  described  ^  the  mirage,  from  the  illusion 
of  which  no  experience  of  others  can  save  the  incepting 
scholar.  '  From  the  vantage  ground  of  my  youth,  I  looked 
down  over  the  outspread  stretch  of  life  on  which  I  was 
entering,  as  upon  a  limitless  plain.  The  task  I  had  set 
myself  (an  edition  of  Plutarch)  seemed  to  lie  close  before 
me,  and  within  my  grasp.  But  as  age  advanced,  things 
assumed  a  different  aspect.  The  horizon  of  my  span  of 
life  drew  nearer,  that  of  my  task  receded.  Ten  years 
passed  away ;  the  end  of  my  labour  was  not  even  in  sight. 
Five  years  more ;  what  remained  to  do  was  still  more  than 
what  was  completed.' 

Thus  it  has  been  the  fate  of  many  men  of  learning  to  be 
crushed  under  the  burden  of  their  own  accumulations. 
Like  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  who  was  surprised  by  death  aet. 
67,  before  he  had  time  to  reduce  his  piles  of  ms.  notes  to 
order,   Casaubon  must  be  reckoned  among  those  who 

1  Thorii  Narratio  :    '  Magnum  opus,  et  longioris  animae,   aggressus  in  vitae 
crepusculo,  et  deliquio  valetudinis  .  .  .' 
*  Plutarchi  Opp.  torn.  i.  praef.  p.  viii. 

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444  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

hoarded  more  than  they  could  ever  use.  But  it  was  not 
avarice,  it  was  the  irresistible  instinct  of  acquisition.  For 
what  he  gave  to  the  press  was  massive ;  and  yet  it  was,  as 
he  often  told  Meric  ^  '  a  very  small  instalment  of  his  multi- 
tudinous schemes.' 

He  left  nothing  prepared  for  press  beyond  a  small  part  of 
his  intended  commentary  on  Polybius.  This  was  printed, 
in  Paris  1617,  by  Madame  Casaubon,  and  amounts  to  no 
more  than  212  pages  in  i2mo.  Florence  religiously  pre- 
served all  her  husband's  papers^,  and  carried  them  with  her 
when  she  returned  to  Paris  after  Isaac's  death  ^.  The  king 
and  Andrewes  selected  a  few  papers  of  a  theological  charac- 
ter to  retain,  for  any  others  they  probably  cared  nothing. 
The  rest,  along  with  the  seven  volumes  of  the  '  Ephemerides,' 
remained  in  Paris,  at  first  in  Madame  Casaubon's  keeping, 
but  afterwards  came  into  the  hands  of  John  Casaubon,  the 
eldest  son.  During  this  time  they  were  lent  freely,  and 
were  given  to  any  persons  who  manifested  curiosity  to 
see  them.  In  this  way  the  fourth  fasciculus  of  the '  Ephe- 
merides' was  lost  irrecoverably.  It  contained  the  three 
years  1604,  5,  6,  and  part  of  1607,  and  as  it  must  have 
contained  many  particulars  relating  to  persons  still  living, 
was  likely  to  be  an  object  of  great  curiosity  to  the  Parisians 
of  Casaubon's  set.  About  1619-20,  John  Casaubon  entered 
the  order  of  the  capuchins,  and  his  father's  papers  came 
again  into  the  hands  of  Florence,  and  of  the  third  son, 
Paul,  who  was  living  in  Paris.  They  agreed  to  send  them 
over  to  England  to  Meric.  Besides  those  which  were 
sent  at  first,  Meric  diligently  collected  any  stray  leaves 
which  he  could  hear  of  in  the  hands  of  friends  of  his 


'  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  no:  'Nonesse  multesimam  partem  suarura  vigil- 
iarum.' 

^  M.  Casaubon,  Pietas,  p.  iii ;  '  Semper  cavit  sedulo,  ne  de  iis  parum  sollicita 
videretur,  quae  ad  mariti  raemoriam  famamque  pertinerent.' 

^  The  history  of  Isaac  Casaubon's  papers  is  given  with  great  minuteness 
in  a  letter  from  Meric  to  Philibert  de  la  Mare,  dated  Canterbury,  1641.  It 
is  printed  below,  Appendix,  note  B,  from  bibl.  nat.  Mss.  fonds  Moreau,  846. 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  425 

father.  As  late  as  1638,  he  recovered  in  this  way  a 
volume  of  memoranda,  which  had  turned  up,  and  been 
sent  over  by  PauP.  Meric  had  all  these  papers  sorted, 
and  extracts  made  of  everything  which  appeared  of  an 
original  character;  critical  remarks,  opinions  on  books 
or  authors,  etc.  While  he  lived  at  Canterbury,  M  eric's 
house,  being  on  the  high  road  to  London,  was  much 
resorted  to  by  foreign  scholars,  to  whom  he  was  always 
ready  to  show  these  documents.  At  M  eric's  death,  he 
left  the  six  volumes  of  the  '  Ephemerides,'  as  we  have 
said,  to  ■''  the  cathedral  in  which  he  had  held  a  prebendal 
stall  more  than  forty  years.  The  rest  of  the  papers  he 
deposited  in  the  Bodleian. 

Here  both  the  originals,  and  the  excerpts  which  had 
been  made  by  Merle's  direction,  remained  for  many  years 
untouched  by,  most  likely  unknown  to,  any  of  the  300 
or  400  resident  recipients  of  the  endowments  of  the 
colleges.  In  1709,  a  german  philologian  from  Wittenberg, 
studying  in  the  Bodleian,  unearthed  them,  and  was  allowed 
by  Hudson,  the  then  hbrarian,  to  take  a  copy^.  Adding 
to  Merle's  excerpts  other  extracts  made  by  himself,  and 
much  extraneous  matter,  J.  C.  Wolf  pubHshed,  on  his 
return  to  Germany,  a  small  volume  under  the  title, '  Casau- 
boniana,'  Hamburg  1710.  It  was  then  the  heyday  oi  Ana, 
before  the  abuse  of  the  title,  for  trading  purposes,  had 
brought  the  species  into  such  disrepute,  that  the  abbe 
d'Olivet,  writing  in  1743,  could  speak  of  them  as  'the 
disgrace  of  our  age*.'  Wolf's  pubHcation  was  not  calcu- 
lated to  raise  the  credit,  either  of  the  class  of  Ana,  or  of 

1  Adversaria,  torn.  22.  p.  7 :  '  Missa  a  fratre  Paulo  Casaubono  novembri 
mense  anni  1638.' 

^  Bibl.  nat.  ut  sup. :  '  Omnem  librariam  supellectilem  libere  promsi,  non  ut 
auferrent  quicquam,  sed  ut  viderent  quod  vellent.' 

3  Wolf,  Casauboniana,  praef.  p.  48 :  '  Ad  Casauboni  imprimis  schedas,  ut  ad 
alia  omnia,  V.  C.  Jo.  Hudsoni  prolixo  in  me  favore,  aditus  mihi  patuit.' 

■>  Hist,  de  I'acad^mie  fran9.  2.  197 :  '  Ces  satires  anonymes,  ces  Ana,  ces 
gazettes  litteraires,  dont  le  nombre  se  multiplie  impunement  tous  les  jours  a  la 
honte  de  notre  sifecle.' 

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436  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Casaubon.  Hitherto  the  termination  had  been  understood 
to  denote  reported  conversation — the  table-talk  of  the 
learned,  the  wise,  or  the  witty.  Such  were  the  Scaligerana 
I*,  i66g;  Scaligerana  2*,  1666;  Perroniana,  1666;  Thuana, 
T669 ;  Menagiana,  1693 ;  Sorberiana,  1691 ;  Chevraeana, 
1697.  In  entitling  his  book  Casauboniana,  Wolf  incurs 
the  charge  of  having,  though  innocently,  allured  pur- 
chasers by  a  false  description  of  his  wares  ^-  Janson  Van 
Almeloveen  had  just  published,  at  Rotterdam  1709,  his 
splendid  collection  of  the  Letters  and  Dissertations  of  the 
two  Casaubons,  father  and  son.  Public  attention  was  thus 
called  again,  nearly  a  century  after  Isaac's  death,  upon  the 
name.  Those  who,  as  must  have  been  the  case  with  many, 
found  the  epistles  an  undecipherable  hieroglyphic,  would 
gladly  seize  on  a  book  which  promised  a  short  cut  to  what 
a  giant  in  learning  had  to  tell.  Their  disappointment  must 
have  been  great  when  they  found  nothing  conversational 
in  the  volume. 

Even  if  Casaubon  had  found  a  Boswell,  it  may  be 
doubted  if  his  talk  could  have  been  effectively  reported. 
We  have  no  account  of  his  style  of  conversation,  but 
we  are  sure  it  had  not  the  pith  and  epigram,  which 
constitute  table-talk  such  as  can  be  carried  away,  and 
reproduced.  Two  mots  indeed  of  Isaac  Casaubon  are 
handed  down.  On  his  first  coming  to  Paris,  and  being 
shown  over  the  Sorbonne* — the  old  hall  before  it  was 
pulled  down — his  guide  said,  '  Voila  une  sale  ou  il  y  a 
quatre  cens  ans  qu'on  dispute.'  '  Qu'a-t-on  decide  ? '  was 
the  retort  of  the  huguenot.  The  scene  of  the  other 
saying   was  also    the    Sorbonne^,   where   he    had   sate 

'  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  the  termination  ana  received  this  extension, 
and  from  denoting  reported  conversation,  came  to  signify  memoranda  of  reading. 
A  collection  of  such  memoranda,  which  in  1716  had  borne  the  title  of '  Memoires 
litt^raires,'  in  a  2^.  ed.  in  1740,  came  out  as  Mathanasiana, 

^  Menagiana,  2.  387  :  '  La  premiere  fois  que  Casaubon  vint  en  Sorbonne — elle 
n'avoit  pas  encore  6i€  rebatie — on  lui  dit ;  Voila  une  sale  oii  il  y  a  quatre  cens 
ans  qu'on  dispute  :  il  dit,  Qu'a-t-on  decide  ? ' 

'  Menagiana,  3.  34. 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  427 

through  a  long  disputation  in  the  barbarous'  language 
of  the  schools,  which  was  still  cherished  in  the  con- 
servative university  of  Paris.  Casaubon  remarked,  on 
coming  out,  that  '  he  had  never  heard  so  much  latin 
spoken  without  understanding  it.'  These  repartees,  col- 
lected in  the  salons  of  Paris  by  Menage,  who  was  a 
year  old  at  Casaubon's  death,  are  the  exceptions  which 
prove  the  rule.  Casaubon  was  an  abundant,  but  not 
an  epigrammatic,  talker.  He  drew  from  his  memory, 
and  not  from  his  mother-wit.  His  a  propos  was  that  of 
facts  and  instances,  not  of  images.  Whatever  comes 
up,  he  can  pour  out  an  inexhaustible  stock  of  suggested 
parallels.  In  the  preface  to  '  Polybius,'  to  take  one 
example,  he  has  to  speak  of  the  usefulness  of  history  to 
men  of  action  ^.  There  immediately  rushes  upon  his 
memory  a  crowd  of  instances  in  point,  from  Hannibal 
down  to  the  Turkish  sultans  of  late  times.  And  this 
muster-roll  flows  from  his  pen  so  easily,  that  we  see  it 
is  not  the  laboured  compilation  of  the  desk,  paraded  to 
make  a  show  of  learning,  but  the  lavish  expenditure  of 
a  boundless  wealth.  When  Menage  says  ^  that  Cas- 
aubon '  ecrivoit  de  source,'  he  does  not  mean  that  he 
drew  upon  his  own  genius  or  invention  in  opposition 
to  books.  He  means  that  he  was  not  an  index  man. 
He  did  not  compile  his  quotations ;  they  suggested  them- 
selves by  their  relevancy.  He  thought  of  the  object 
through  the  words  of  the  ancients.  The  amassing  of 
references  did  not  become  itself  his  object. 

This  habit  of  his  mind  is  reflected  in  his  'Adversaria.' 
When  Wolf  gave  to  the  world  his  selection  from  Casau- 
bon's papers,  under  the  title  of  '  Casauboniana,'  great  was 
the  expectation  of  the  learned,  and  great  their  disappoint- 
ment.    The  literary  public  unanimously  pronounced  the 

1  See  above,  p.  197.  ' 

'  Menagiana,  a.  153 :  '  Je  ne  fais  que  de  thSmes,  Casaubon  Ecrivoit  de 
source.' 

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428  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

collection  devoid  of  anything  which  could  be  expected 
from  the  great  reputation  of  Isaac  Casaubon  ^.  The  gossips 
found  in  it  no  scandal,  the  curious  no  autobiography,  the 
learned  no  original  criticism.  The  explanation  is  to  be 
found  in  Casaubon's  pecuHar  system  of  work.  He  read 
pen  in  hand,  with  a  sheet  of  paper  by  his  side,  on  which  he 
noted  much,  but  wrote  out  nothing.  What  he  jots  down  is 
not  a  remark  of  his  own  on  what  he  reads,  nor  is  it  even 
the  words  he  has  read ;  it  is  a  mark,  a  key,  a  catchword, 
by  which  the  point  of  what  he  has  read  may  be  recovered 
in  memory.  The  notes  are  not  notes  on  the  book,  but 
memoranda  of  it  for  his  own  use.  When  he  had 
accumulated  a  number  of  sheets,  he  tied  them  up  in 
a  packet,  or  stitched  them  up  in  a  book,  and  called  it 
'  indigesta  CAjj  ' — materials.  '  Casaubon's  way,'  Grotius 
tells  ^  Camerarius,  '  was  not  to  write  out  what  he  designed 
to  publish,  but  to  trust  to  his  memory,  with  at  least  a  few 
jottings,  partly  on  the  margin  of  his  books,  partly  on  loose 
sheets — true  sibylline  leaves.'  The  name  'Adversaria'' 
was  given  to  these  memoranda  by  Isaac  himself.  But 
they  are  of  a  very  different  type  from  the  Adversaria  of 
Turnebus,  or  Barthms,  which,  like  the  papers  of  Dobree 
published  by  his  friends  after  his  death,  contain  notes  on 
classical  writers.  Casaubon's  notes  are  bare  references, 
and  references  not  to  places  in  books,  but  to  the  thing  or 
word  to  which  he  intended  to  recur.  To  this  vast  mass  of 
material  his  own  memory  was  the  only  key.  The  demand 
thus  made  upon  the  memory  was  prodigious,  and  the 
faculty  seemed  to  respond  to  it.  He  told  ^  de  Thou  that 
the  mass  of  citation  in  the  '  Exercitations '  was  in  great  part 

^  D'Airtigny,  Nouveaux  memoires,  i.  296 :  '  II  n'y  a  presque  rien  dans  ce 
recueil  qui  reponde  a  I'idee  qu'on  doit  se  former  d'Isaac  Casaubon,  Fun  des 
plus  S9avans  et  des  plus  honnStes  hommes  de  son  siecle.' 

^  Grotii  Epp.  app.  ep.  184 :  '  Is  erat  Casaubonus  qui  niliil  parati  penes  se 
haberet,  nisi  in  raemoria,  et  si  forte  in  oris  librorum,  aut  brevibus  schedis, 
Sibyllae  foliis.' 

'  Ep.  931 :  '  Veniunt  in  meraoriam  quotidie  quae  legi  ante  decern,  viginti,  aut 
etiam  triginta  annos.' 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  429 

drawn  from  his  memory,  which  supplied  him  with  what  he 
read  ten,  twenty,  nay  thirty  years  before.  Without  it  he 
could  not  have  produced  what  he  did. 

The  printed  books  which  belonged  to  him  were  used  by 
him  in  the  same  way,  scored  under,  and  marked  anyhow, 
to  catch  the  eye  in  turning  over  the  leaves.  The  blank 
pages,  the  title  page,  or  any  page,  serve  to  hold  a  reference. 
Hence,  while  the  scholar  reckons  among  his  choicest 
treasures  a  greek  volume  with  marginal  corrections  in 
Scaliger's  hand,  a  volume  which  has  belonged  to  Casaubon 
is  merely  defaced  by  the  owner's  marks  and  memoranda. 
He  valued  his  books  more  than  anything  else  that  belonged 
to  him.  But  he  valued  them  only  as  the  tools  he  was  to 
work  with.  What  cripples  him  when  he  is  at  work  on 
Baronius  in  London  is  the  not  having  his  own  books.  Not 
only  that  many  he  wanted  were  not  to  be  got  in  London, 
but  that  the  copies  with  which  Young  supplied  him  could 
not  replace  to  him  his  own,  in  which  he  could  find  anything 
— '  quos  usu  contrivi.'  His  advice  to  students  is'  :  'Re- 
member that  it  is  no  use  to  have  read  a  thing,  unless  you 
retain  it  in  your  memory.  Make  notes  therefore  of  every- 
thing you  read,  as  aids  to  memory.'  '  Practical  wisdom,' 
he  says  again  ^,  '  is  only  the  recollection  of  many  things.' 

The  '  Adversaria,'  then,  are,  for  the  most  part,  mere  hints 
for  his  own  use,  and  which  cannot  be  put  to  use,  even 
when  they  can  be  deciphered,  by  another^.  Some  aid 
indeed  may  be  derived  from  them  by  the  biographer. 
Casaubon  occasionally  marks  upon  a  sheet  of  such 
scratchings  the  time  and  place  of  reading.  At  least  we 
can  get  from  them  an  insight  into  his  method  of  reading, 
and  the  sources  of  his  knowledge.     They  serve,  in  these 

'  Adversaria,  torn.  16  :  '  Quicquid  legis  in  excerptorum  libros  referre  me- 
mineris.  haec  unica  ratio  labanti  memorise  succurrendi.  scitum  enim  illud  est, 
"  Tantum  quisque  scit,  quantum  memoria  tenet." ' 

2  Prasf.  in  Polyb. 

'  Wolf,  Casauboniana,  p.  273 :  '  In  curis  Polybianis  ampla  seges  observa- 
tionum  exstat  .  .  .  sad  ita  plerumque  congestarum,  ut  nullus  fere  observetur 
ordo,  nonnulla  subindicentur potius  quam  edisserantur.^ 

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430  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

respects,  to  supplement  the  diary.  In  the  '  Casauboniana ' 
all  these  personal  indications  are  wanting.  Wolfs  object 
not  being  biographical,  he  retrenched  all  that  was  in- 
dividual and  local,  and  reduced  each  note  to  its  literary 
content.  For  these  reasons  the  'Casauboniana'  cannot 
rank  with  their  fellows,  and  will  not  be  read  by  those 
readers,  if  any  there  be  now,  who  take  delight  in  the  Ana 
of  the  17th  century.  The  scholar,  however,  who  may  take 
the  pains  to  examine  these  disjointed  fragments,  lying  there 
massive  and  helpless,  like  the  boulders  of  some  abraded 
stratification,  will  at  least  recognise  the  remains  of  a 
stupendous  learning.  What  Goethe  said  ^  of  Niebuhr,  is 
here  true  of  Casaubon,  '  It  is  not  what  he  tells  me,  but 
how  he  tells  me  it,  that  I  care  for.  It  is  the  deep  insight, 
and  thorough  manner  of  the  man  that  edifies.' 

Coleridge's  title-pages  would  fill  a  large  volume  ;  and  '  if 
Herder's  powers  had  been  commensurate  with  his  will,  all 
other  authors  must  have  been  put  down  ^.'  Of  the  in- 
numerable treatises,  which  Casaubon  announces  as  in 
preparation,  few  traces  are  to  be  found  in  his  papers. 
When  some  subject  of  classical  antiquity  comes  up,  and 
he  says  he  is  going  to  publish  a  book  on  it,  and  that  he  has 
the  materials  by  him,  how  much  exists  in  his  memory,  how 
much  in  his  scattered  notes,  he  does  not  himself  know. 
To  accumulate  the  passages,  to  understand  them  in  their 
mutual  light,  to  arrange  them  in  some  sort  of  order,  all 
this  chiefly  in  his  memory— and  then  from  them  to  write 
his  diatribe — this  is  his  literary  method.  His  schemes  of 
this  kind,  unaccomplished,  are  here  enumerated,  but  the 
list  is,  probably,  far  from  exhaustive :  — 

1.  A  second  volume  of  Exercitations  on  Baronius. 

2.  As  part  of  the  foregoing,  or  as  independent  treatises : 
(i)  A  disputation  on  transubstantiation.  (2)  On  sacrifice  in 
the  christian  church.     See  Exercitt.  pp.  503.  554. 

'  Goethe  to  Zelter.     Goethe's  observation  is  so  appropriate  to  the  case  of 
Casaubon,  that  I  give  the  whole  passage  below.     See  Appendix,  note  C. 
"  De  Quincey,  Works,  6.  117. 

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X.l  CHARACTERISTIC.  431 

3.  Of  his  commentary  on  Polybius  he  habitually  spoke  as 
if  it  were  complete.  But,  beyond  the  small  fragment  printed 
at  Paris,  161 7,  only  very  trifling  notes  towards  it  are  found 
among  his  papers,  from  which  Meric  drew  what  he  contributed 
to  Gronovius'  Polybius,  1670.  Cf.  Exercitt.  p.  564,  'in  laborio- 
sissimis  nostris  (ad  Polybium)  commentariis  accurate  earn  dic- 
tionem  interpretamur.' 

4.  On  the  shows  of  the  amphitheatre,  and  the  games  of  the 
circus. 

5.  De  magistratibus  romanis.  Of  this  project  Adversaria  29 
preserves  a  fragment. 

6.  Liber  de  re  critica.  To  this  project,  frequently  referred 
to  by  Casaubon,  belong  a  few  notes  hardly  to  be  deciphered  in 
Adversaria  23. 

7.  Commentarius  de  re  vestiaria.  This  was  planned  at 
Geneva  when  he  wanted  to  lecture  on  the  De  Pallio.  He 
alludes  to  it  repeatedly  as  finished  ;  see  Animadvv.  in  Ath. 
13.  3,  'quaesivimus  diligentissime  de  poetse  mente  in  nostris 
De  re  vestiaria  commentariis ;  eo,  te,  lector,  rejicere  fas  et  jus 
esto  nobis.'  But  all  that  remains  of  it  is  some  '  collectanea '  in 
Advers.  8  and  29.  Nor  is  there  reason  to  think  that  any  more 
was  ever  written  out,  as  Meric  says  he  had  only  a  '  rudis  indi- 
gestaque  moles'  of  this  and  of  the  De  coloribus. 

8.  De  coloribus.     See  Animadvv.  in  Ath.  i.  47. 

9.  A  reply  to  the  '  Peripateticse  Discussiones '  of  Franciscus 
Patricius.  '  In  eo  scripto  quod  adversus  Patricii  librum  para- 
mus,  quodque  brevi,  faciente  D.  O.  M.,  edemus.'  'De  Strabone 
et  ejus  scriptis,'  prefixed  to  Commentary  on  Strabo.  See  also 
Diog.  Laert.  not.  5.  2. 

10.  Liber  de  proverbiis,  Ephem.  p.  751,  July  1610  :  '  I  resolved 
to-day  to  publish  shortly  a  book  on  proverbs,  together  with  a 
century  of  proverbs.' 

11.  On  the  method  of  reading  history.  He  intended  a  trea- 
tise on  this;  he  discoursed  on  the  topic  as  preliminary  to  his 
lecture  on  Herodotus  in  1601,  and  notes  of  this  lecture,  taken 
down  at  the  time,  are  in  Bibl.  nat.  anciens  fonds,  6252,  and  cf. 
Advers.  24. 

12.  Observationum  liber.  In  February  1583,  he  obtained  a 
licence  from  the  petit  conseil  to  print  a  book  under  this  title. 
Geneva  mss.  registre  du  pet.  cons.  fo.  25.  It  never  appeared. 
In  1598  he  is  resolving,  Ephem.  p.  112,  '  seriously  to  begin  to  cast 

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433  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

what  I  have  observed  on  various  authors  into  a  book  of  "  com- 
mentarii  observationum  variarum."'  Notwithstanding  this  re- 
solve duly  recorded  in  the  diary,  the  book  was  never  written. 

13.  An  edition  of  the  lxx.     See  Ep.  186. 

14.  A  commentary  on  Homer.  See  Strabo,  comm.  13.  i  :  he 
will  be  brief  in  his  notes  on  these  two  books  of  Strabo,  because 
he  is  preparing  shortly  to  publish  his  notes  on  Homer.  Nothing 
of  the  kind  is  found,  nor  is  there  reason  to  think  anything  was 
ever  written. 

15.  An  edition  of  jElianus  Tacticus.  See  Polyb.  praef.  p.  61  : 
'.^lianum  emendatum  et  observationibus  nostris  illustratum, 
deo  propitio,  vulgabimus.' 

16.  A  fuller  edition  of  jEneas  Tacticus.  ^n.  Tact,  praef.  the 
present, hasty  edition  is  but  'pignus  navandae  operae.' 

17.  An  edition  of  Josephus;  but  this  time  with  the  proviso, 
'if  I  were  younger.'  Ep.  848.  He  had  begun,  at  Geneva,  a 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  Josephus  into  latin,  not  knowing,  at 
the  time,  that  it  had  been  already  done  by  Munster,  and  pub- 
lished at  Basel  1541.  He  had  got  into  the  2nd  book  before  dis- 
covering this.  Gronovius,  though  living  in  a  la'nd  of  books,  it 
appears,  from  Burmann,  Syll.  2.  p.  571,  had  never  heard  of  the 
Hebrew  Josephus. 

18.  An  edition  of  Stephanus  of  Byzantium.  See  Ep.  4,  and 
Colomies,  Bibl.  choisie,  p.  66. 

19.  Notes  on  the  tragedians.  See  Ep.  4 :  '  Habeo  in  alios 
scriptores  greecos,  prsesertim  tragicos,  parata  non  pauca.' 

20.  An  edition  of  Juvenal.  See  Ep.  523:  'Eum  poetam  gra- 
vissimum,  si  superi  annuerint,  accurate  recensebimus.' 

21.  An  edition  of  Celsus.  See  Ep.  533  :  '  Concinnanda  editio, 
cujus  neminem  jure  pceniteat.' 

22.  Notes  on  Cicero,  Epistolse  ad  Atticum.  See  Ep.  184 : 
'Audebimus  et  nos  nostras  divinationes  publicare.' 

23.  An  Arabic  lexicon.     See  Ephem.  p.  510,  Epp.  511.  548  \ 

24.  Thesaurus.  State  Papers,  Domestic,  Jas.  i.  vol.  92.  no.  95. 
Savile  to  Carleton,  '  The  Thesaurus  hee  mentions,  Mr.  Casaubon 
took  that  worke  out  of  my  handes  above  two  yeares  before  his 
death.'  I  find  no  other  allusion  to  any  such  project  by  Casaubon. 
Can  it  have  been  a  lexicon  to  Chrysostomi  Opera  for  which 
Adversaria  28  contains  a  few  notes  ? 

'  On  Casaubon's  Arabic  reading  see  Renan,  '  Averroes,'  p.  60 :  (2nd  ed., 
p.  80.) 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  433 

Of  all  these  schemes,  and  of  others  not  a  few,  hardly 
any  traces  remain  among  the  papers,  because  hardly  any- 
thing was  ever  put  on  paper.  He  deceived  himself  into 
thinking  that  he  had  made  progress  in  writing,  when  the 
material  was  heaped  up  only  in  his  memory.  He  got  at 
last  the  habit  of  putting  by  any  topic  as  it  came  up,  with 
the  remark,  ^ '  this  we  have  discussed  at  length  elsewhere.' 
The  distinction  between  what  he  had  read,  what  he  had 
noted  down,  and  what  he  had  printed,  became  obliterated 
in  his  mind. 

Next  to  the  designed,  but  not  performed,  stands  the 
imperfectly  executed.  The  list  of  Isaac  Casaubon's  fin- 
ished works  contains  twenty-five  distinct  publications,  not 
including .  prefaces  to  the  books  of  others,  or  second 
editions  of  his  own  books.  Of  these  twenty-five,  however, 
not  many  are  productions  by  which  he  would  have  chosen 
to  be  judged.  Some  were  mere  'juvenilia,'  others  im- 
perfect attempts,  which  he  was  unwilling  to  acknowledge. 
Of  the  first  class  were  the  '  Notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius,' 
the  '  Lectiones  Theocriticae,'  even  in  their  enlarged  form 
in  Commelin's  edition  of  1596.  Of  the  Strabo  of  1587  he 
says  he  ^'was  ashamed  to  own  the  parentage.'  For 
Aristotle  he  did  little  more  than  correct  the  press  for  the 
printers.  It  is  not  till  we  reach  the  Theophrastus,  1592, 
that  we  meet  with  Casaubon's  characteristic  merit— that 
we  have  an  interpreter  speaking  from  the  fulness  of 
knowledge. 

Well  done,  or  ill  done,  or  half  done,  however,  Isaac 
Casaubon's  books  are  now  consigned  to  one  common 
oblivion.  They  are  written  in  latin,  and  scholars'  latin  of 
the  renaissance  is  a  peculiar  language,  accessible  to  a  very 
circumscribed  public.     But  this  is  not  all.     Even  for  this 


'  See  Greg.  Nyss.  p.  81 :  '  De  quibus  alibi  adfatim.'     Scriptt.  hist.  aug.  prsef. 
p.  33.     Notae  in  Diog.  La.  5.  a  :  '  De  his  nos  alias.' 

"^  Ep.  II :  '  Illud  opus  non  ut  partus  legitimus  ingenioli  nostri  sed  ut  ixTpafia 
i^iiaivov  haberi  debet.'     Cf.  ep.  580. 

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434 


ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 


circumscribed  public  of  scholars  Casaubon's  books  have 
but  a  secondary  value.  Philology  is  a  science,  not  a  fine 
art ;  and  it  is  the  fate  of  science  that  the  books,  in  which 
it  is  consigned,  are  in  a  constant  state  of  supersession. 
A  work  of  literature  may  be  surpassed,  but  not  super- 
seded. The  interpreter  of  the  classics  works  for  his  own 
age  only.  He  is  the  medium  through  which  we  read  an 
ancient  book,  and  the  medium  must  be  in  the  language 
and  mode  of  our  own  day.  It  must  possess  all  the  latest 
improvements.  The  books  of  the  scholars  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  have,  therefore,  for  us  little 
more  than  an  historical  interest.  They  will  be  visited 
only  by  those  curious  enquirers,  who  may  wish  to  ac- 
quaint themselves  with  the  history  of  learning.  The  bio- 
graphical data  will  be  of  more  interest  than  the  philolo- 
gical matter.  Yet  as  history  makes  itself  from  age  to  age, 
the  oldest  names  must  tend  to  recede  from  view.  We 
cannot  afford  to  know  all  about  everybody.  How  many 
years  will  elapse  before  another  reader  will  go  through, 
as  the  present  writer  has  done,  the  bulky  folio  of  Isaac 
Casaubon's  printed  epistles,  or  the  seven  volumes  of  un- 
printed  answers  of  his  correspondents  in  the  Burney 
collection?  The  present  imperfect  memorial  is  the  first 
that  has  ever  been  attempted  in  the  language  of  the 
country  which  adopted  and  endowed  him.  Till  an  abler 
hand  shall  erect  an  enduring  monument  in  a  modern 
tongue,  may  this  essay  be  at  least  '  professione  pietatis 
excusatus ! ' 

But  Casaubon's  books,  whatever  their  worth,  were  not 
the  man.  The  scholar  is  greater  than  his  books.  The 
result  of  his  labours  is  not  so  many  thousand  pages  in 
folio,  but  himself.  The  '  Paradise  Lost'  is  a  grand  poem, 
but  how  much  grander  was  the  living  soul  that  spoke  it ! 
Yet  poetry  is  much  more  of  the  essence  of  the  soul,  is 
more  nearly  a  transcript  of  the  poet's  mind,  than  a 
volume  of  '  notes '  can  be  of  the  scholar's  mind.     It  has 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  435 

been  often  said  of  philosophy  that  it  is  not  a  doctrine 
but  a  method.  No  philosophical  systems,  as  put  upon 
paper,  embody  philosophy.  Philosophy  perishes  in  the 
moment  you  would  teach  it.  Knowledge  is  not  the 
thing  known,  but  the  mental  habit  which  knows.  So  it  is 
with  Learning. 

Learning  is  a  peculiar  compound  of  memory,  imagi- 
nation, scientific  habit,  accurate  observation,  all  concen^ 
trated,  through  a  prolonged  period,  on  the  analysis  of  the 
remains  of  literature.  The  result  of  this  sustained  mental 
endeavour  is  not  a  book,  but  a  man.  It  cannot  be  em- 
bodied in  print,  it  consists  in  the  living  word.  Such  was 
Scaliger,  as  drawn  to  us  by  Casaubon  ^ :  '  A  man  who,  by 
the  indefatigable  devotion  of  a  stupendous  genius  to  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  had  garnered  up  vast  stores  of 
uncommon  lore.  And  his  memory  had  such  a  happy 
readiness,  that  whenever  the  occasion  called  for  it, 
whether  it  were  in  conversation,  or  whether  he  were  con- 
sulted by  letter,  he  was  ready  to  bestow  with  lavish  hand 
what  had  been  gathered  by  him  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow.' 
True  learning  does  not  consist  in  the  possession  of  a 
stock  of  facts — the  merit  of  a  dictionary — but  in  the  dis- 
cerning spirit,  a  power  of  appreciation,  'judicium'  as  it 
was  called  in  the  sixteenth  century — which  is  the  result  of 
the  possession  of  a  stock  of  facts.  Rare  as  genius  is,  it 
may  be  doubted  if  consummate  learning  be  not  rarer.  A 
few  such  men  there  have  been — Wyttenbach,  Ruhnken, 
Bentley,  in  the  last  century,  Lobeck  in  the  present.  Such 
a  man  was  Isaac  Casaubon.  It  is  a  treasure  which  we 
can  only  possess  in  '  earthen  vessels.'    There  came  the 


1  Casauboni  prsef.  in  Opuscula  Scaligeri,  Paris,  1610 :  '  Is  erat  Scaliger,  qui 
Stupenda  felicitate  ingenii,  et  assidua  intentione  studii,  quum  esset  assecutus  ut 
ingentes  raree  doctrinae  opes  in  exprorapta  sua  memoria,  velut  in  sanctiore 
quodam  serario,  haberet  reconditas;  ut  quaeque  sese  occasio  subito  offerebat, 
sive  in  communibus  colloquiis,  sive  ad  qusesita  per  literas  amicis  responderet, 
liberali  manu  quicquid  magno  sudore  qusesiverat,  promeret.' 

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436  ISAAC  CASAUPON.  [Sect. 

death  summons,  and  at  fifty-six  all  those  stores  which  had 
been  painfully  gathered  by  the  daily  toil  of  forty  years 
were  swept  away,  and  nothing  left  but  some  lifeless  books, 
which  can  do  little  more  than  a  gravestone  can  do,  perpet- 
uate the  name — '  tot  congestos  noctesque  diesque  labores 
Hauserit  una  dies.' 

But,  besides  his  memory,  the  great  scholar  has  left 
us  his  example.  There  are  books,  and  very  useful  books, 
of  which  the  author  is  no  more  to  us  than  a  portion  of 
the  machinery  which  put  them  into  type.  The  many 
thousand  pages  which  Isaac  Casaubon  wrote  may  be  all 
merged  in  the  undistinguished  mass  of  classical  commentary, 
and  yet  there  would  remain  to  us  as  a  cherished  inherit- 
ance, the  record  of  a  life  devoted  to  learning. 

In  what  does  his  example  consist  ?  It  is  the  one  lesson 
summed  up  in  the  epigram  that  'genius  is  patience.' 
What  is  often  called  '  genius '  was  wanting  in  Casaubon. 
His  want  of  genius  saved  him  from  falling,  as  Scaliger 
has  sometimes  done,  into  the  temptation  of  pursuing  the 
striking  rather  than  the  true.  What  Lobeck  has  said  of 
himself  may  be  said  of  Casaubon,  that  ^ '  he  has  never 
aimed  at  brilliant  results,  but  at  an  exposition,  as  nearly 
complete  as  he  could  make  it,  of  the  scattered  material.' 
Industry  was  Casaubon's  genius.  Not  the  industry  of 
the  pen,  but  the  industry  of  the  brain. 

It  is  well  that  we  should  be  alive  to  the  price  at  which 
knowledge  must  be  purchased.  Day  by  day,  night  by 
night,  from  the  age  of  twenty  upwards,  Casaubon  is  at  his 
books.  He  reahsed  Boeckh's  ideal,  who  has  told  us  that 
in  classical  learning  '  dies  diem  docet,  ut  perdideris  quam 
sine  linea  transmiseris.'  When  he  is  not  at  his  books, 
his  mind  is  in  them.  Reading  is  not  an  amusement  filling 
the  languid  pauses  between  the  hours  of  action ;  it  is  the 
one  pursuit  engrossing  all  the  hours  and  the  whole  mind. 

'  Friedlander,  Mittheilungen,  p.  23. 

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X-]  CHARACTERISTIC. 


437 


The  day,  with  part    of   the  night    added,   is  not  long 
enough  ^ 

His  life,  regarded  from  the  exterior,  seems  adapted  to 
deter,  rather  than  to  invite  imitation.    A  life  of  hardship, 
in  circumstances  humble,  almost   sordid,  short  of  want, 
but  pinched  by  poverty;   Casaubon    renounced   action, 
pleasure,  ease,  society,  health,  life  itself— killing  himself  at 
fifty-six.     Shall  we  say  that  he  did  this  for  the  sake  of 
fame  ?     Fame  there  was,  but  it  reached  him  in  but  faint 
echoes.     Even  what  there  was,  was  all  dashed  by  the 
loud  slander  of  the  dominant  ecclesiastical  party,  and  the 
whispered   suspicion   of   the  vanquished.      At  best,   the 
limits  of  such  fame  must  always  be  circumscribed.    To 
the  great,  the  fashionable,   the  gay,  and  the  busy,  the 
grammarian  is  a  poor  pedant,  and  no  famous  man  I    The 
approbation  of  our  fellows  may  be  a  powerful  motive  of 
conduct.     It  is  powerful  to  generate  devotion  to  their 
service.     It  is  not  powerful  enough  to  sustain  a  life  of 
research.     No  other  extrinsic  motive  is   so.    The  one 
only  motive  which  can  support  the  daily  energy  called  for 
in  the  solitary  student's  life,  is  the  desire  to  know.     Every 
intelligence,  as  such,  contains  a  germ  of  curiosity.     In 
some  few  this  appetence  is  developed  into  a  yearning,  an 
eagerness,  a  passion,  an  exigency,  an  'inquietude  pous- 
sante,'  to  use  an  expression  of  Leibnitz,  which  dominates 
all  others,  and  becomes  the  rule  of  life  ^- 


'  On  Suetonius'  phrase  '  disponere  diem '  (Tiberius  lo)  Casaubon  remarks  : 
'  notemus  utilissimum  morem,  neque  enim  aliter  temporis  ratio  constare  potest ; 
sic  et  apud  Grsecos  diligentissimus  quisque  at  prudentissimus.'  Wolfs  edition, 
vol.  4,  p.  8. 

°  Cf.  the  Greville  Memoirs,  2.  8 :  'At  one  there  was  to  be  a  council  to  swear 
in  privy  councillors  and  lords  lieutenant,  and  receive  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
addresses  ...  I  never  saw  so  full  a  Court,  so  much  nobility  with 
academical  tagrag  and  bobtail.' 

'  Compare  Milton's  account  of  the  origin  of  '  Paradise  Lost,'  '  Reason  of 
church  government,'  book  2.  introduction  :  '  I  began  to  assent  to  .  .  .  divers 
of  my  friends,  and  not  less  to  an  inward  prompting  which  now  grew  daily 
upon  me,  that  by  labour  and  intent  study,  which  I  take  to  be  my  portion  in  this 


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438  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sec*, 

The  public  of  a  busy  age  and  an  industrial  community 
has  quite  other  notions  of  a  literary  life.  It  is  conceived 
to  be  a  life  of  ease  ;  it  is  the  resource  of  the  indolent,  who 
would  escape  from  the  penalty  of  labour.  An  arm  chair 
and  slippers  before  a  good  fire,  and  nothing  to  do  but  to 
read  books.  This  is  the  epicurean  existence,  the  '  nova 
Atlantis  of  mediocrity  a  I'engrais,'  which  we  call  academic 
life.  Of  the  self-denial,  the  unremitting  effort,  the  in- 
cessant mental  tension,  the  strain  to  touch  the  ever- 
receding  horizon  of  knowledge,  the  fortitude  which 

'Through  enduring  pain, 

Links  month  to  month,  with  long-drawn  chain 

Of  knitted  purport,' 

of  the  devotion  of  a  life,  the  modem  world  of  letters 
knows  nothing.  Our  literature  is  the  expression  of  the 
life  from  which  it  emanates.  It  bears  the  stamp  of  half 
knowledge.  It  is  the  dogmatism  of  the  smatterer.  It  has 
no  grotindwork  in  science.  Its  employment  is  to  enforce 
the  chance  opinion  of  the  day  by  epigram  and  sarcasm.  It 
hates  and  ridicules  science.  It  disbelieves  in  it.  As  Sainte- 
Beuve  says  ^  of  De  Tocqueville,  '  II  a  commence  a  penser 
avant  d'avoir  rien  appris,  ce  qui  fait  qu'il  a  quelquefois 
pense  creux.'  Why  is  it  that  the  modern  man  of  science 
stands  on  a  higher  level,  moral  and  intellectual,  than  the 
modern  man  of  letters  ?  It  is  not  owing  to  any  superior 
value  in  the  object  of  knowledge,  but  because  the  phy- 
sicist is  penetrated  by  the  spirit  of  thorough  research, 
from  which  our  literature  is  entirely  divorced. 

Schiller  says^  'However  much  may  be  gained  for  the 
world  as  a  whole  by  the  specialisation  of  study,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  the  individuals  whom  it  befals  are  cursed  for 
the  benefit  of  the  world.'  Was  not  this  Casaubon's  case  ? 
The  diary  is  a  complaint,  a  groan,  a  record  of  unhappiness. 

life,  joined  with;  the  strong  propensity  of  nature,  I  might  perhaps  leave  something 
so  written  to  after  times  as  they  should  not  willingly  let  it  die.' 

'  Causeries,  15,  105,  note.  »  .Ssthetische  Briefe,  Br.  5. 

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X,]  CHAR  ACT  ERISTIC,  439 

But  more  closely  looked  into,  it  will  be  found  that  all  this 
misery  is  derived  not  from  the  scholar's  life,  but  from  the 
impediments  to  leading  it  which  external  circumstances 
create.  If  he  could  only  get  rid  of  cares,  expel  intruders, 
shut  the  door  of  his  study,  and  get  his  time  to  himself! — 
time,  '  cujus  penuria  laboro ! '  That  fatal  want  of  time  ; 
the  shortness  of  each  day !  the  shortness  of  life !  This  is 
the  true  scientific  spirit,  and  was  the  temper  which  tradition 
handed  down  as  the  temper  of  the  greek  pl^ilosophy^. 
We  find  no  complaint  in  the  diary  of  the  weariness  of 
study,  but  much  of  those  unkind  friends  who  broke  in 
upon  study.  It  is  not  the  search  for  truth  which  exhausts 
him,  it  is  the  being  called  off  from  it.  The  worry  and 
irritation  of  which  the  diary  is  the  sad  record  arises  not 
from  the  pursuit  itself,  but  from  the  impeded  energy*  He 
chafes  under  the  inflictions  of  visitors,  and  the  distractions 
of  business.  This  resistance  of  the  invasion  of  his  work- 
shop was  not  shyness,  or  defective  sociability.  Of  course 
it  was  ascribed  to  these  weaknesses.  We  read  in  the  life 
of  Wyttenbach  ^  that  he  was  charged  with  misanthropy  by 
'  society '  in  Leyden.  On  hearing  of  this  accusation, 
Creuzer  wrote  to  him ;  '  I  know  well  what  this  indictment 
means.  It  means  that  you  allow  yourself  only  with  the 
learned,  and  do  not  give  up  your  time  to  the  gossips. 
A  man  cannot  live  with  these  and  with  the  muses  too,' 

When  Casaubon  is  in  his  studies,  and  has  made  his 
orisons,  shut  up  alone  with  God  and  with  his  books,  then 
he  is  in  fruition.  He  tells  Lingelsheim^  'All  my  joys  and 
delights  are  in  my  pursuits  of  literature,  such  as  they  are. 
With  them  I  sweeten  the  bitter  of  life.'  Writing  is  an 
effort,    mixed   with   pain.     Teaching— he    did   not,    like 

1  Cf.  Zeno's  saying,  Diog.  Laert.  7.  23,  that  'What  men  most  want  is  time.' 
^  Mahne,   p.  206 :    '  Quod  nonnuUi  mussitant  subinde  "  paucorum   te   esse 
hominum,"  illud  earn  vim  habeat,  doctiorum  te  esse,  non  otiosorum,  non  male 
feriatorum,  non  vulgi.     quorum  qui  esse  velit,  is  non  potest  musarum  esse.' 

5  Ep.  408 :    '  In  literulis  nostris  omnes  nobis  positae  sunt  voluptates  atque 
araoenitates  quibus  aerumnosae  hujus  vitae  ri.  mKpa  edulcamus.' 


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440  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

Scaliger,  abhor  it— was  no  pleasure.  But  of  reading  he 
was  insatiable.  The  compiler's  task  fatigues  Casaubon,  as 
it  does  others.  Of  imbibing  knowledge  he  never  tires. 
The  enjoyment  is,  in  part,  the  intellectual  gratification  of 
mere  acquisition ;  the  sense  of  the  widening  horizon,  of  the 
mastery  of  a  given  field,  of  the  entering  into  complete 
possession.  He  writes^,  set.  37,  '  Long  ago,  inflamed  with 
the  ardour  of  learning,  I  eagerly  procured  for  myself  the 
scholia  on  all  the  poets,  on  the  epigrammata,  on  Oppian.' 
De  Maistre  contemptuously  describes  his  man  of  science^, 
as  pale  with  watching,  blotched  with  ink,  his  arms  loaded 
with  books  and  instruments,  dragging  himself  along  the 
highway  of  truth.  De  Maistre  belonged  to  a  generation, 
or  a  class,  to  whom  the  sweetness  that  is  found  in  learning 
was  unknown.  Casaubon  had  tasted  it;  but  what  was 
peculiar  to  him  was  that  he  carried  on  into  middle  life 
the  appetite  of  youth,  the  passionate  desire  to  exhaust 
knowledge. 

But  his  gratification  has  also  another  source.  What  he 
reads  delights  him.  Prosaic  as  Isaac  Casaubon's  own  style 
is,  he  is  not  wholly  without  a  sense  of  poetry.  The  twenty- 
seventh  poem  of  the  Theocritean  collection  draws  from 
him  the  confession  '  mellitissimum  carmen.'  He  derives 
pleasure  from  Nonnus.  But  his  preference  is  for  the 
practical  sense  of  such  authors  as  Strabo  and  Polybius. 
Greek  speculation  was  wholly  closed  to  him.  His  idea  of 
philosophy  is  that  political  philosophy  may  be  learned  from 
history,  and  ethical  from  biography^.  He  appreciates 
maxims  of  common  life  such  as  were  to  be  met  with  in  the 
stoic  school.  He  believes,  with  his  age,  or  rather  with  the 
3rd  century,  that  Greek  philosophy  was  the  relic  of 
a  primaeval  revelation  *.    Athenseus,  on  whom  he  spent  so 

'  Lectiones  Theocriticae,  p.  63.  The  passage  is  one  of  the  large  additions  to 
the  2^.  ed.  of  1596.  ^  Soirees  de  Sainct  P^tersbourg,  >..  95. 

'  Hist.  Aug.  Scriptores,  praef. 

'  Exercitt.  in  Bar.  p.  507 :  '  Si  philosophi  quidem  ex  primsevae  lucis  reliquiis 
balbutire  de  istis  aliquid  fortasse  potuerunt.' 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  441 

much  time,  he  found  tiresome  owing  to  the  absence  of 
ethical  motive  in  his  book.  Casaubon's  want  of  classical 
feeling  limited  his  pleasure  in  the  pure  classical  writers. 
The  higher  accents  of  Greek  poetry  and  speculation  he 
could  not  catch.  What  stirs  his  soul  is  Christian  Greek, 
e.  g.  S.  Chrysostom,  whose  '  Epistola  ad  Stagirium '  excites 
him  to  rapture^.  Of  the  canonical  books,  the  hebrew 
psalter  is  a  constant  companion,  and  never  fails  to  move 
him.  It  was  the  only  book  he  had  ^  brought  with  him  to 
England,  having  thrown  it  casually  into  his  travelling-bag. 
He  carried  it  with  him  everjrwhere,  and  he  records  that 
at  Downham,  in  the  thicket,  he  had  read  over  the  iigth 
psalm  with  effusion.  He  is  carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm 
of  S.  Paul.  Reading  2  Cor.  4.  17,  '  Our  light  affliction,' 
etc.  he  exclaims  ^,  '  Divine  words !  Paul  of  all  writers  I 
could  think  wrote  not  with  fingers,  pen  and  ink,  but 
with  pure  emotion,  heart,  bowels!  Take  any  epistle  of 
Paul,  e.g.  that  to  the  Philippians,  and  dwell  upon  it; 
what  glorious  passages,  what  glowing  vehemence  of 
language ! '  With  what  attention  he  had  read  S.  Chryso- 
stom, voluminous  as  his  writings  are,  may  be  instanced  in 
his  saying*,  'Unless  my  memory  deceives  me,  Chryso- 
stom, in  his  genuine  works,  never  refers  the  expression 
"  daily  bread,"  in  the  Lord's  prayer,  to  the  eucharist.'  It 
is  almost  a  paradox  that  this  most  successful  and  most 
thorough  interpreter  of  the  classics,  should  have  been 
a  man  who  was  totally  destitute  of  sympathy  for  their 
human  and  naturalistic  element. 

The  habitual  attitude  of  Casaubon's  soul  was  abandon- 
ment; not  merely  resignation,  but  prostration  before  the 

'  Ephem.  p.  1055  :  '  O  divinos  libros  !  o  pectus  dei  plenum  ! ' 

^  Advers.  25.  p.  125 :  '  Unicum  fuit  psalterium,  quod  in  peram  projeceram, 
futurum  mihi  assiduum  comitem.' 

5  Advers.  ap.  Wolf,  p.  135 ;  '  Ille  solus  ex  omnibus  scriptoribus  non  mihi 
videtur  digitis,  calamo,  et  atramento  scripsisse,  verum  ipso  corde,  ipso 
affectu,  et  denudatis  visceribus.' 

'  Exercitt.  in  Bar.  p.  531. 

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443  ISAAC  CASAVBON.  [SEcf. 

Unseen.  He  moved,  thought,  and  felt,  as  in  the  presence 
of  God.  His  family  and  friends  lay  near  to  his  heart,  but 
nearer  than  all  is  God.  In  all  his  thoughts  the  thought 
of  God  is  subsumed.  He  hardly  puts  pen  to  paper  with- 
out marking  the  sheet  tniv  ^eu  ^.  A  calvinistic  creed,  and 
a  shattered  organism,  combined  to  foster  this  dejection, 
and  to  maintain  him  in  a  state  of  habitual  despondency. 
Yet  for  Casaubon,  as  for  the  huguenot  of  that  time  of  re- 
buke and  defeat,  out  of  weakness  came  strength.  The  con- 
fidence, inspired  by  the  sense  that  he  was  the  special  care 
of  almighty  providence,  balanced  the  self-abasement  of  the 
individual.  The  physician  Thoris  ^  remarked  that  the  mind 
had  sustained  the  body.  The  sustaining  force  was  in  part 
intellectual  energy,  but  in  part,  also,  the  courage  of  christian 
faith  and  hope,  which  relies  on  a  power  above  its  own. 

In  such  a  temperament  superstitious  behefs  were  sure 
to  lodge.  Yet  Isaac  Casaubon  was  not  more,  but  rather 
less,  superstitious  than  his  age.  He  swallows  the  alchemi- 
cal fiction  of  '  potable  gold  ^,'  though  his  countryman 
Palissy  had  long  before  *  exposed  it.  All  belief  is  with 
him  a  question  of  authority,  and  books.  If  a  great  author 
has  said  a  thing,  it  is  so.  He  believes  ^  that  earth  brought 
from  Palestine  cured  diseases,  and  availed  against  evil 
spirits,  because  S.  Augustine  said  so.  That  women  were 
sometimes  turned  into  men  he  reads  ^  in  Hippocrates  and 
Plinius,  and  has  heard  of  instances  in  pur  times '.  But 
stories  equally  well  vouched  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  or  by 
Beda,  he  rejects.     The  authority  is  insufficient.     Robert 

^  Greg.  Nyssen.  p.  60,  he  notes  ;  '  Mos  ille  piorum  fuit  laude  dignissimus, 
ut  epistolis  suis  domini  nomen  praeponerent.' 

^  See  above,  p.  420.  '  Ephem.  p.  978. 

*  Palissy,  Le  moyen  de  devenir  riche,  p.  186.  ed.  1636. 

°  Exercitt.  in  Bar.  p.  660 :  '  Hoc,  quia  tantae  pietatis  vir,  non  ut  ex  incertis 
rumoribus  acceptum,  sed  ut  certo  sibi  compertum,  narrat,  varum  esse  equidem 
nuUus  dubito.' 

"  Advers.  torn.  4. 

'  Bishop  Burnet,  Letters,  etc.  p.  246,  believed  that  the  same  transformation 
had  happened  to  two  nuns  at  Rome. 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  443 

Constantine  wrote  in  a  friend's  album  that  he  had  then 
passed  his  hundredth  year.  Casaubon  ^  will  not  believe  it ; 
he  is  'taking  the  old  man's  licence  with  his  age.'  He 
hesitates  to  give  his  assent  to  the  efficacy  of  the  royal 
touch  ^.  It  is  vouched  by  grave  witnesses,  but  not  by  any 
ancient  author.  A  prodigy,  well  authenticated,  is  related  to 
him  *,  as  having  happened  at  Cambridge ;  he  replies,  very 
cautiously,  'that  if  it  were  so,  it  would  be  very  marvellous.' 
He  scorns  ^  the  fable  of  pigmies,  though  theif  existence 
was  vouched  by  an  eyewitness.  But  then  here  he  relied 
Upon  Strabo,  who  had  in  excellent  greek  pronounced 
pigmies  to  be  poetic  fictions. 

We  have  represented  Casaubon  as  destitute  of  imagina- 
tion. He  was  without  what  is  commonly  called  so — the 
inventive  imagination  of  the  poet,  that  dangerous  faculty 
which  enlivens  fact,  but  too  often  also  supersedes  it.  But 
his  realistic  habit  of  mind  took  from  objects  a  vivid  image  ; 
he  was  a  close  and  keen  observer,  always  trying  to  form 
an  exact  picture.  He  was  particularly  attracted  by  the 
marvellous  in  nature — monstrosities,  deformities,  oddities. 
He  had  collected  out  of  the  ancients  all  the  wonders  he 
had  met  with  in  the  course  of  his  reading.  Spontaneous 
combustion,  flying,  levitation,  conjuring  tricks,  enter  into 
this  catalogue.  It  is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Ulysse  Aldro- 
vandi,  whose  works,  although  many  of  them  were  already 
in  print,  were  unknown  to  Casaubon  ;  and  the  scholar 
is  of  less  easy  credulity  than  the  naturalist  by  profession. 
Casaubon  had  read  with  care  and  extracted*  Fernelius 
'  De  abditis  rerum  causis.'  His  copy  of  Bodin's  '  Thea- 
trum'^  bears  throughout   marks  of   the  attention   with 

'  Advers.  torn.  4.  f.  23. 

^  Ephem.  p.  790 :  '  Res  est  visu  dignissima,  et  cujus  effectum  viri  graves  et 

pii  prsedicant.'  *  See  Appendix,  note  D. 

2  Coram,  in  Strabon.   p.  189:    '  Legi   Bergaei   cujusdam   Galli   scripta,   qui 

se  vidisse  diceret.  at  non  ego  credulus  illi ;  illi,  inquam,  omnium  bipedum 
tnendacissimo.' 

*  Adversaria,  torn.  11.  *  Now  in  King's  library,  Brit.  Mus. 

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444  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

which  he  had  read  it.  Among  the  matters  noted  in  it 
are  (p.  391)  the  birth  of  a  child  after  eighteen  months' 
pregnancy ;  (p.  429)  the  breast  of  an  old  woman  which 
yielded  milk  upon  being  perseveringly  sucked.  The  court 
and  ecclesiastical  circles  occupied  themselves  much  with 
wonders  such  as  would  now  be  abandoned  to  the  specula- 
tion of  the  uneducated.  Morton  writes  to  him  that  a 
comet  has  risen  in  France,  portending  evil  to  the  protest- 
ants  ^-  Andrewes  tells  him  ^  a  story  of  a  man  in  Lombard 
Street  who,  in  the  year  1563,  had  died  of  the  plague, 
came  to  life  again  sufficiently  to  order  and  eat  a  veal 
cutlet,  and  then  died  for  good.  Another  marvel,  repeated 
by  Andrewes,  had  been  told  him  by  Still,  late  bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells,  how  that  after  a  thunderstorm  at  Wells, 
the  persons  present  in  the  cathedral,  including  the  bishop 
and  his  wife,  had  found  themselves  marked  in  various 
parts  of  the  body  with  crosses  ^-  Casaubon  suspends  his 
behef;  he  does  not,  like  Laud,  look  timidly  round  for 
omens,  but  these  things  interest  him.  He,  who  pares 
down  his  memoranda  to  the  briefest  possible  jottings, 
spares  the  time  to  write  out  these  narratives  of  prodigies 
at  full  length. 

Apart  from  the  marvellous,  he  would  inquire  into  and 
investigate  any  striking  natural  facts.  The  curiosity  he 
exhibited  in  this  direction  is  further  evidence  of  his 
craving  appetite  for  information,  without  reference  to 
any  use  it  might  be  turned  to.  He  examined  a  Polish 
envoy,  whom  he  met  at  Theobald's,  on  the  natural  history 
of  Poland,  how  a  strong  north  wind  had  once  covered  the 
country  with  flights  of  the  pelican  *.     He  makes  a  descrip- 


'  Burney  mss.  367.  p.  87.  '  Advers.  torn.  25.  p.  115. 

'  Ibid.  torn.  28.  p.  125. 

*  Advers.  torn,  28.  p.  124.  The  word  used  by  Casaubon  is  'onocrotalus.' 
He  means,  I  suppose,  the  common  pehcan,  Pelecanus  onocrotalus,  Linn.,  a 
species  which,  though  pretty  widely  distributed  over  eastern  Europe,  hardly 
occurs  so  far  north  as  the  Baltic. 


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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  445 

tive  note  of  the  ounce  ^  which  the  Savoy  envoy  brought 
from  Algiers.  He  had  spoken  with  the  horned  man  from 
the  Cevennes,  who  was  brought  to  Paris  in  Henri  iv.'s 
time,  and  learned  his  history  from  his  own  mouth.  Thus 
he  knew^  that  horned  men  were  possible,  but  men  with 
hoofs  (Satyrs)  were  the  creation  of  the  poets.  He  goes, 
of  course,  to  see  Banks'  horse.  Banks  was  in  Paris  with 
his  horse  in  1601.  From  his  name,  Morocco,  one  would 
conjecture  that  the  horse  was  Arab,  though  Melleray^ 
calls  him  '  a  bay  english  gelding.'  Casaubon  went  to 
the  Rue  de  la  barre  du  bee  to  see  him,  and  took  much 
pains  to  investigate  the  phaenomenon.  He  cannot  doubt 
that  '  brutes  are  sometimes  inhabited  by  evil  spirits  *,'  yet 
in  this  instance  he  elicited  the  secret  of  the  horse  from  the 
showman's  own  confession.  The  readiness  with  which 
the  scotch  jockey — vir  honestissimus — parted  with  his 
secret  to  Casaubon  may  have  been  occasioned  by  his  fear 
of  being  condemned  for  a  wizard  if  he  affected  super- 
natural powers.  And  the  natural  docility  of  the  animal 
was  quite  as  wonderful  as  a  miracle  ^.  He  is  always 
pleased  when  he  can  illustrate  his  author  with  some  fact 
which  he  has  observed  himself  So  in  Athenaeus,  Hiero's 
tessellated  pavement  ^  with  scenes  from  the  Iliad,  reminds 

'  '  Cattopardus  '  Casaubon  calls  it ;  I  suppose  Tigris  uncia  of  Linnaeus. 

'  De  Satyrica  poesi,  i.  c.  a.  p.  148. 

'  Translation  of  Apuleius,  p.  250 :  '  Le  cheval  est  de  moyenne  taille,  guilledin 
d'Angleterre.' 

'  Adversaria,  ap.  Wolf,  p.  55,  cf.  '  Letter  to  Martin,'  London,  1615. 

■'  Ephem.  p.  325  :  '  Quod  potuimus  praestitimus  (i.  e.  in  study)  sed  ita  ut  horam 
daremus  spectaeulo  illius  equi  Scotici  mirabilis.'  It  is  the  '  dancing-horse '  of 
'Love's  Labour 's  Lost,'  act  i.  sc.  ■^.  Cf.  Hall,  Satires,  4.  2  :  '  Who  vies  his 
pence  to  vievsr  some  trick  Of  strange  Morocco's  dumb  arithmetic'  Whitelock's 
Zootomia,  p.  143 ;  Webster,  Works,  3.  207.  Other  passages  are  collected  by 
Douce,  Illustrations  of  Shakespeare,  p.  131.  [See  also  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography.  3.  p.  125.] 

^  Animadverss.  in  Athen.  5.  10,  and  1.  14.  Fifty-eight  paintings  of  the 
adventures  of  Ulysses,  designed  by  Primaticcio,  were  executed  in  fresco  by 
Nicolo  del'  Abate,  right  and  left,  on  the  walls  of  'la  grande  galerie.'  This 
gallery,  built  and  thus  adorned  by  Francis  i,  was  pulled  down  by  Louis  xv, 
who  could  destroy  what  he  could  not  replace.  See  d'Argenville,  Vie  des 
peintres,  2.  16  (178a). 


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446  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

him  of  the  gallery  at  Fontainebleau  which  Francis  i.  had 
painted  with  scenes  from  the  Odyssey.  Such  illustrations, 
of  which  traces  still  appear  in  his  commentaries,  had  ori' 
ginally  served  to  enliven  an  oral  lecture.  Apropos  of  a 
passage^  in  Theophrastus,  he  remembers  that  the  same 
fashion  of  pouring  the  wine  into  the  water,  and  not  the 
water  upon  the  wine,  still  prevails  in  Languedoc.  He 
illustrates  the  '  lapidosa  cheragra '  of  Persius  ^  by  mention 
of  a  case,  probably  familiar  to  the  medical  students,  of  a 
gouty  patient  in  the  neighbourhood,  who  had  discharged 
from  his  joints  more  than  his  own  weight  in  chalk  stones. 
The  use  of  dogs  to  carry  despatches  through  the  enemy's 
lines ;  the  checked  plaids  of  the  swiss  peasantry ;  the 
Spanish  almonds  he  had  seen  at  Lyon ;  the  practice  of 
fixing  the  antlers  of  the  deer  over  the  gates  of  the  chateau 
— these  are  a  few  among  many  examples,  which  might  be 
culled  from  his  various  notes,  of  his  general  remark  ^  that 
every  day  life  is  constantly  reproducing  its  old  incident. 

When  credulity  is  allowed  scope,  intolerance  is  not  far 
off.  Isaac  Casaubon,  who  differed  from  the  religion  of 
his  contemporaries,  could  not  endure  that  a  smaller 
minority  should  deviate  from  his  own  creed.  He  takes 
credit  with  Du  Perron*  for  James'  interposition  in  the 
matter  of  Vorstius.  He  thinks  the  Racovian  catechism  so 
detestable  that  he  would  annihilate  it  ®.  He  would  have 
had  Stapleton's  body  dug  up  and  burnt  •',  for  some  extrava- 
gant expressions  about  the  power  of  the  church.  Worst 
of  all,  the  burning  of  Legatt,  the  feeble  imitation  by  the 
english  church  of  the  great  crime  of  Calvin,  had — would 
that  it  had  not! — Casaubon's  approval ''. 


'  Animadverss.  in  Ath.  ii.  4.  ^  Comm.  in  Pers.  p.  392. 

'  .^n.  Tact.  c.  15 :  '  Vita  quotidiana  nova  subinde  suggerit,  iis  quas  olim 
acciderunt  plane  gemina.  vidimus  et  nos  Allobrogico  hello,'  etc. 

'  Resp.  ad  card.  Perron,  p.  5.  '  Ephem.  p.  963. 

*  Advers.  ap.  Wolf,  p.  49. 

'  Exercitt.  in  Bar.  ded.  .  'Arianum  in  sua  perfidia  obstinatissimum,  qui  in 
vinculis  diu  detentus,  revocari  ad  sanam  mentem  nulla  ratione  potuerat,  flammis 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  447 

Nothing  is  more  common  in  his  later  years  than  the 
epithets  '  wicked,'  '  impious,'  '  blasphemous,'  bestowed  not 
on  conduct,  but  on  opinions.  As  the  ecclesiastical  spirit 
gains  on  him,  it  invades  his  judicial  function  as  an  inter- 
preter. Once  or  twice  he  shows  a  disposition  to  twist  the 
sense  of  a  passage  in  a  father  to  make  it  orthodox.  The 
theory  of  verbal  inspiration  comes  across  his  path  on  the 
same  ground.  The  hebrew  and  greek  of  the  canonical 
books,  both  words  and  matter,  are  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  suggested  to  the  writers  what  they  should 
say,  and  in  what  words  ^.  The  word  l3aTTo\oyeiv,  though 
not  the  actual  word  employed  by  our  Lord,  who  spoke 
syriac,  is  yet  the  exact  equivalent  supplied  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  ^.  At  this  point  the  critic  merges  in  the  religionist, 
and  he  refuses  to  apply  the  knowledge  which  he  possesses 
to  the  purpose  of  interpretation. 

Casaubon's  attitude  towards  the  religious  parties  of  his 
time  has  been  touched  upon  already,  more  than  once,  in 
the  course  of  this  memoir.  What  has  been  said  may  be 
summarised  as  follows. 

Up  to  the  middle  of  the  Paris  period,  he  had  remained, 
what  he  had  been  brought  up,  a  pure  Genevan  calvinist. 
This  old  huguenot  party,  thorough  believers  in  their  own 
creed  as  exclusively  true,  were  for  no  compromise  with 
the  papal  anti-christ.  About  1605  and  thenceforward,  his 
exclusiveness  began  to  give  way.  Commerce  with  the 
world  of  a  capital,  conflict  with  rational  catholics,  and  an 
assiduous  study  of  antiquity,  could  not  fail  to  enlarge  his 
ideas,  and  necessitate  a  change  of  position.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  while  this  change  of  front  was  being  effected, 
he  '  wavered,'  and  thought  of  transferring  himself  to  the 
catholic  church,  of  becoming,  simply  and  purely,  a 
convert.     But  after  a  short  period  of  irresolution,  during 

ultricibus  tua  majestas,  impatiens  injurise  factse  domino  nostro  Jesu  Christo, 
Deo  aKTiarco,  jussit  tradi.' 
1  Exercitt.  in  Bar.  13.  18.  ^  Ibid.  14.  8. 

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448  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

which  he  was  feeling  his  way,  mentally  and  morally,  he 
settled  down  in  the  attitude  which  we  may  call  fusionist. 
This  was  the  position  of  many  of  the  best  and  most  well- 
informed  protestants  of  that  period,  Grotius,  Calixtus, 
Jean  Hotman,  Bongars.  Unable  to  acquiesce  in  the 
narrow  dogmatism  of  the  calvinists,  or  to  surrender  the 
world  to  the  domination  of  the  clergy,  these  men  proposed 
a  middle  term,  a  reunion  of  Christendom  on  the  basis  of  a 
comprehension.  They  regarded  the  Reformation,  not  as 
a  new  religion,  but  as  a  return  to  primitive  Christianity. 
They  desired  to  promote,  not  protestantism,  but  a  re- 
ligious revival,  in  which  all  christians  should  participate 
without  quitting  the  communion  of  the  church  universal. 
The  politicians,  like  Hotman  and  Bongars,  aimed  at  bring- 
ing this  about  by  diplomatic  means.  They  wanted  a 
general  council.  The  more  learned,  like  Casaubon, 
sought  the  same  end  by  popularising  a  knowledge  of  an- 
tiquity. All  parties  understood  that  the  edict  of  Nantes 
was  no  settlement,  that  it  was  but  a  truce,  which  was 
being  worked  for  the  benefit  of  the  stronger  party,  by 
the  system  of  gradual  encroachment. 

Such  seem  to  be  the  special  characteristics  of  Isaac 
Casaubon.  Something  remains  to  be  said  to  indicate  his 
position  in  relation  to  the  general  course  of  ancient  learn- 
ing in  modern  Europe. 

De  Quincey  ^  has  endorsed  the  complaint  that  '  the 
great  scholars  were  poor  as  thinkers.'  De  Quincey  wrote 
at  a  time  when  '  original  thinking '  was  much  in  repute, 
and  was  indeed  himself  one  of  the  genial  race  to  whom  all 
is  revealed  in  a  moment,  in  visions  of  the  night.  To 
break  entirely  with  the  past,  to  owe  nothing  to  it,  was  then 
the  ambition  of  all.  A  freshness  and  a  vigour  characterise 
the  english  and  german  literature  of  the  fifty  years  1780- 
1830,  which  are  due  to  this  effect  to  discard  the  lumber  of 

'  Works,  3.  168. 

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XJ  CHARACTERISTIC,  449 

'  unenlightened'  ages.  The  '  scholars '  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury were  engaged  in  an  employment  the  very  opposite  of 
that  of  the  '  genialities.'  The  scholars  were  not  '  poor  as 
thinkers,'  because  thinking  was  not  their  profession. 
They  were  busy  interpreting  the  past.  The  fifteenth 
century  had  rediscovered  antiquity,  the  sixteenth  was 
slowly  deciphering  it.  For  this  task,  memory,  not  inven- 
tion, was  the  faculty  in  demand.  These  two  are  ^  faculties 
which  are  usually  found  in  inverse  energy  in  an  age  as  in 
an  individual.  It  is  no  more  appropriate  to  require  of  the 
interpreters  that  they  should  have  been  thinkers,  than  to 
require  of  the  'illuminati'  that  they  should  have  been 
learned.  If  to  a  De  Quincey  the  scholar  is  a  '  poor 
thinker,'  to  a  Wyttenbach  ^  the  '  thinker '  wears  the 
appearance  of  one  who  'would  disguise  his  ignorance  of 
facts  under  the  polished  surface  of  philosophical  phrase- 
ology.' Nor  was  it  only  in  the  age  of  genius  that  it  was 
supposed  desirable  to  be  without  knowledge  of  what  has 
been  said  by  those  who  have  gone  before  us.  M.  Taine^ 
has  a  remarkable  chapter  in  which  french  hatred  of 
'  pedantry '  is  erected  into  a  system.  Victor  Cousin  is 
rallied  for  his  taste  for  original  documents,  and  it  is  made 
a  serious  blemish  on  his  fame,  that  he  preferred  to  write 
biography  from  textual  sources,  instead  of  superseding  the 
facts  by  a  statement  of  his  own  subjective  consciousness. 
Though  it  is  out  of  place  to  complain  of  Casaubon  for 

'  Cf.  what  Priestley  says  of  himself,  Autobiography,  p-  76 :  '  My  defect  in 
point  of  recollection,  which  may  be  owing  to  a  want  of  sufficient  coherence 
in  the  association  of  ideas  formerly  impressed,  may  arise  from  a  sort  of 
constitution  more  favourable  to  new  associations ;  so  that  what  I  have  lost 
with  respect  to  memory,  may  have  been  compensated  by  what  is  called 
invention,  or  new  and  original  combinations  of  ideas.  This  is  a  subject  that 
deserves  attention.' 

*  Wyttenbach,  Philomathia,  2.  145  :  '  Nunc  sunt  qui  in  historia  scribenda  nil 
nisi  disserant  ac  ratiocinentur,  et  rerum  gestarum  ignorantiam  philosophando 
disst'fttuletti.' 

^  Philosophes  fran9ais,  ch.  8.  It  is  said  of  Mdzeray,  who  wrote  the  history 
of  France  from  Pharamond,  that  he  once  boasted,  and  that  in  the  presence  of 
Du  Cange,  that  '  he  never  read  any  of  the  monkish  chronicles.' 

G  g 

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450  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

being  '  a  poor  thinker,'  it  is  proper  to  ask  how  far  he  was 
an  efficient  interpreter. 

'  The  modest  industry  of  Casaubon,'  says  Bernhardy  ^, 
'  was  the  complement  of  the  genius  of  Scaliger.  Casau- 
bon was  the  first  to  popularise  a  connected  knowledge  of 
the  life  and  manners  of  the  ancients.'  This  was  all ;  but 
fully  to  apprehend  Bernhardy's  words  demands  some 
acquaintance  with  the  previous  history  of  classical  study. 

The  Renaissance  had  dealt  with  antiquity,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  learned  research,  but  in  the  spirit  of  free  creative 
imitation.  In  the  fifteenth  century  was  revealed  to  a 
world,  which  had  hitherto  been  trained  to  logical  analysis, 
the  beauty  of  literary  form.  The  conception  of  style  or 
finished  expression  had  died  out  with  the  pagan  schools  of 
rhetoric.  It  was  not  the  despotic  act  of  Justinian,  in  clos- 
ing the  schools  of  Athens,  which  had  suppressed  it.  The 
sense  of  art  in  language  decayed  from  the  same  general 
causes  which  had  been  fatal  to  all  artistic  perception. 
Banished  from  the  roman  empire  in  the  sixth  century,  or 
earlier,  the  classical  conception  of  beauty  of  form  re- 
entered the  circle  of  ideas  again  in  the  fifteenth  century^ 
after  nearly  a  thousand  years  of  oblivion  and  abeyance. 
Cicero  and  Vergil,  Livius  and  Ovid,  had  been  there  all 
along,  but  the  idea  of  composite  harmony,  on  which  their 
works  were  constructed,  was  wanting.  The  restored 
conception,  as  if  to  recoup  itself  for  its  long  suppression, 
took  entire  possession  of  the  mind  of  educated  Europe. 
The  first  period  of  the  renaissance  passed  in  adoration 
of  the  awakened  beauty,  and  in  efforts  to  copy  and 
multiply  it. 

But  in  the  fifteenth  century,  '  educated  Europe '  is  but  a 
synonym  for  Italy.  What  literature  there  was  outside  the 
Alps  was  a  derivative  from,  or  dependent  of,  the  Italian 

^  Grundriss  d.  rOtnischen  Lit.  p.  120 ;  ['  Soweit  erganzt  ihn  durch  ruhigen 
und  bescheidenen  Fleiss  Isaac  Casaubonus,  der  erste,  ■welcher  eine  zusammen- 
hangende  Kenntniss  sowohl  von  Leben  und  Sitten  der  Alten,  als  von  ihrer 
gewahlten  Phraseologie  klar  in  praktischen  Beobachtungen  verbreitet  hat.'] 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  451 

movement.  The  fact  that  the  movement  originated  in  the 
latin  peninsula,  was  decisive  of  the  character  of  the  first 
age  of  classical  learning  (1400-1550).  It  was  a  revival  of 
latin,  as  opposed  to  greek,  literature.  It  is  now  well  un- 
derstood that  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  though  an  in- 
fluential incident  of  the  movement,  ranks  for  nothing 
among  the  causes  of  the  renaissance.  What  was  revived 
in  Italy  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  tastes  of  the 
schools  of  the  early  empire — of  the  second  and  third  cen- 
tury. There  were,  no  doubt,  differing  characteristics,  for 
nothing  in  history  ever  exactly  repeats  itself  But  in  one 
decisive  feature  the  Hterary  sentiment  of  the  fifteenth 
century  was  a  reproduction  of  that  of  the  empire.  It  was 
rhetorical,  not  scientific.  Latin  literature  as  a  whole  is 
rhetorical.  There  are  exceptional  books,  such  as  the 
'  Natural  history '  of  Plinius,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  idea  of 
science  was  greek,  and  is  alien  to  latin.  To  turn  phrases, 
and  polish  sentences,  was  the  one  aim  of  the  litterateur  of 
the  empire.  This  phraseological  character  of  literary 
effort  is  clearly  marked  in  the  preface  which  Aulus  Gellius 
(circ.  A.  D.  150)  prefixed  to  his  'Attic  evenings^.'  In  this 
he  apologises  to  the  reader  for  the  seemingly  recondite 
nature  of  some  of  his  chapters.  '  This  profundity,'  he 
says,  '  is  only  such  in  appearance.  I  have  avoided  push- 
ing my  investigations  too  deeply,  and  present  the  readers 
only  with  the  elements  of  the  liberal  arts,  with  such 
matters  only  as  it  is  a  disgrace  to  an  educated  man  not  to 
know.'  This  divorce  of  the  literature  of  knowledge,  and 
the  literature  of  form,  which  characterised  the  epoch  of 
decay  under  the  early  empire,  characterised  equally  the 
epoch  of  revival  in  the  Italy  of  the  popes.  The  refine- 
ments of  literary  composition  in  verse  and  prose,  and  a 

1  Noctes  Atticae,  praef. :  '  Non  fecimus  altos  nirais  et  obscures  in  his  rebus 
quaestionum  sinus;  sed  primitias  quasdam  et  quasi  libamenta  ingenuarum 
artium  dedimus,  quae  virum  civiliter  eruditum  neque  audisse  unquam,  neque 
attigisse,  si  non  inutile,  at  certe  indecorum  est.' 

G  g  a 
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453  ISAAC  CASAUBON,  [Sect. 

tact  of  emendation  founded  on  this  refined  sense,  this  was 
the  ideal  of  the  scholar  of  the  Italian  renaissance. 

The  decay  and  extinction  of  the  artistic  enthusiasm  of 
the  Italians  was  gradual,  but  may  be  said  to  have  been 
consummated  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  '  Petrus  Victorius,'  (who  died  1584,  aet.  90,)  says 
de  Thou  1,  '  longseva  setate  id  consecutus  est,  ut  literas  in 
Italia  nascentes,  et  psene  extinctas,  viderit.'  Out  of  the 
decaying  sense  of  form  arose,  however,  a  new  perception, 
of  which  the  remains  of  antiquity  were  equally  the  object. 
Composition  is  at  best  an  amusement  of  the  faculties,  and 
could  offer  no  satisfaction  to  the  awakened  intellect  of 
Europe.  As  the  eye,  captivated  at  first  by  charms  of 
person,  learns  in  time  to  see  the  graces  of  the  soul  that 
underhe  and  shape  them,  so  the  classics,  which  had 
attracted  by  their  beauty,  gradually  revealed  to  the  modern 
world  the  rich  wisdom  which  that  beauty  enshrined.  The 
first  scholars  of  the  renaissance  enjoyed,  without  labour, 
the  harmonies  of  language,  the  perfection  of  finish,  which 
the  great  masters  of  latin  style  had  known  how  to  give  to 
their  work.  Just  when  imitation  had  degenerated  into 
feebleness,  mannerism,  and  affectation,  the  discovery  was 
made  that  these  exterior  beauties  covered  a  world  of 
valuable  knowledge,  even  in  the  latin  writers.  And  under- 
lying the  latin  literature,  it  was  perceived,  was  one  more 
valuable  still,  the  greek.  The  interest  of  the  educated 
world  was  transferred  from  the  form  to  the  matter  of 
ancient  literature.  Masses  of  useful  knowledge,  natural 
or  political,  the  social  experience  of  many  generations, 
were  found  to  have  lain  unnoticed  in  books  which  had 
been  all  the  while  in  everyone's  hands.  The  knowledge 
and  wisdom  thus  buried  in  the  greek  writers  presented  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  barren  sophistic,  which  formed  the 
curriculum  of  the  schools. 

It  became  the  task  of  the  scholars  of  the  second  period 

*  Thuani  Hist.  4.  319. 

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X.]  Characteristic.  453 

of  the  classical  revival  to  disinter  this  knowledge.  The 
classics,  which  had  been  the  object  of  taste,  became  the 
object  of  science.  Philology  had  meant  composition,  and 
verbal  emendation ;  it  now  meant  the  apprehension  of  the 
ideas  and  usages  of  the  ancient  world.  Scholars  had 
exerted  themselves  to  write;  they  now  bent  all  their 
effort  to  know.  The  period  of  youthful  enjoyment  was  at 
an  end;  the  time  of  manhood,  and  of  drudgery,  was 
entered  upon.  There  came  now  into  existence  what  has 
ever  since  been  known  as  '  learning,'  in  the  special  sense 
of  the  term.  The  first  period  of  humanism,  in  which  the 
words  of  the  ancient  authors  had  been  studied,  was  thus 
the  preparatory  school  for  the  humanism  of  the  second 
period,  in  which  the  matter  was  the  object  of  attention. 

As  Italy  had  been  the  home  of  classical  taste  in  the 
first  period,  France  became  the  home  of  classical  learning 
in  the  second.  Though  single  names  can  be  mentioned — 
such  as  Victorius  or  Sigonius  in  Italy,  Meursius  or  Vul- 
canius  in  the  Low  Countries,  who  were  distinguished 
representatives  of  'learning' — yet  France,  in  Budaeus, 
Turnebus,  Lambinus,  Joseph  Scaliger,  Isaac  Casaubon, 
and  Saumaise,  produced  a  constellation  of  humanists, 
whose  fame  justly  eclipsed  that  of  all  their  contemporaries. 
The  Jirsi  period  in  the  history  of  classical  learning  may  be 
styled  the  Italian.  The  second  period  coincides  with  the 
french  school.  If  we  ask  why  Italy  did  not  continue  to  be 
the  centre  of  the  humanist  movement,  which  she  had  so 
brilliantly  inaugurated,  the  answer  is  that  the  inteUigence 
Was  crushed  by  the  reviviscence  of  ecclesiastical  ideas.  , 
Learning  is  research ;  research  must  be  free,  and  cannot 
coexist  with  the  claim  of  the  catholic  clergy  to  be  superior 
to  enquiry.  The  french  school,  it  will  be  observed,  is 
wholly  in  fact,  or  in  intention,  protestant.  As  soon  as  it 
was  decided,  as  it  was  before  1600,  that  France  was  to 
be  a  catholic  country,  and  the  university  of  Paris  a  catholic 
university,  learning  was  extinguished  in  France.     France, 

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454  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

'  noverca  ingeniorum,'  saw  her  unrivalled  scholars  expa- 
triate themselves  without  regret,  and  without  repentance. 
With  Scaliger  and  Saumaise  the  seat  of  learning  was 
transferred  from  France  to  Holland.  The  third  period  of 
classical  learning  thus  coincides  with  the  dutch  school. 
From  1593,  the  date  of  Scaliger's  removal  to  Leyden,  the 
supremacy  in  the  republic  of  learning  was  possessed  by 
the  Dutch.  In  the  course  of  the  i8th  century  the  dutch 
school  was  gradually  supplanted  by  the  north  german, 
which,  from  that  time  forward,  has  taken,  and  still  pos- 
sesses, the  lead  in  philological  science. 

Of  the  six  names  which  we  have  put  forward  as  the 
coryphaei  of  the  second,  or  french,  school  of  learning — 
Budseus,  Turnebus,  Lambinus,  Scaliger,  Casaubon,  and 
Saumaise— each  has  his  own  individual  character  and 
privileged  faculty. 

We  are  concerned  at  present  only  with  Casaubon. 
And  it  so  happens,  that  it  is  precisely  Casaubon  who 
forms  the  best  and  most  perfect  type  of  the  school  in 
which  he  must  be  classed.  He  owes  this  representative 
character  to  his  deficiency  in  individual  genius,  which 
made  him  receptive  of  the  secular  influences.  While  the 
poetical  principle,  the  creative  impulse,  had  been  the  mov- 
ing power  of  the  renaissance,  the  faculty  which  was  called 
for,  in  the  period  which  succeeded  the  renaissance,  was 
the  receptive  and  the  retentive  faculty.  The  spirit  of 
discovery  languished.  It  had  been  found,  that  there  was 
extant  a  vast  body  of  knowledge,  and  that  to  read  ancient 
books  was  the  road  to  it.  The  self  moved  mind,  '  Das 
Selbstbewegen  aus  sich,'  was  no  longer  the  instrument ; 
the  intellectual  object  was  a  given  object,  as  it  had  been 
in  the  13th  century,  so  again  in  the  i6th.  As,  in  the 
13th  century,  this  object  had  been  the  church  dogmatic 
tradition,  now  it  was  the  classical  tradition,  which  had 
been  broken  in  the  6th  century. 

To  put  together  this  tradition,  to  revive  the  picture  of 

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X-]  CHARACTERISTIC.  455 

the  ancient  world,  patient  industry,  an  industry  adequate 
to  a  complete  survey  of  the  extant  remains  of  the  lost 
world,  was  the  one  quality  required.  This  was  Casau- 
bon's  aim,  and  inspiring  ideal.  He  is  not  a  great  gram- 
marian. His  sense  of  language  is  not  equal  to  that  Which 
has  been  possessed  by  the  great  critics  from  Scaliger 
down  to  Cobet.  Hence  his  metrical  skill  is  small,  and  he 
is  rarely  happy  in  an  emendation  where  metrical  or  gram- 
matical tact  comes  into  play.  Yet  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  this  fact  that  Scaliger  could  say  of  Casaubon,  that  he 
knew  more  greek  than  himself  i;  and  that  Ruhnken^, 
more  than  a  century  and  a  half  later,  could  say,  that,  even 
then,  he  had  been  surpassed  by  no  one  but  by  Hemsters- 
husius.  A  very  moderate  amount  of  scholarship  is 
enough  to  enable  us  to  discern  that  there  are  limitations 
to  Casaubon's  power  over  Greek.  His  own  metrical 
composition  is  abject.  He  is  not  very  successful  in  greek 
prose  ^.  Yet  he  had  so  familiarised  himself  with  greek 
idiom,  that  greek  phrases  are  continually  emerging  in  his 
latin  sentences,  as  the  natural  expression  of  his  thought. 
The  explanation  of  this  seeming  inconsistency  is^  that  he 
thought  in  greek  words  and  phrases,  but  not  in  greek 
sentences.  His  memory  supplied  him  with  a  full  vocab- 
ulary, but  he  had  not  cultivated  either  the  logic  or  the 
rhythm  of  the  greek  sentence. 


'  Scaligerana  2".  p.  45 :  '  C'est  le  plus  grande  homme  que  nous  avons  en  grec ; 
je  lui  cede.'  Cf.  Seal.  Epp.  p.  221 :  '  Et  memoria  avorum  et  nostri  saeculi  graece 
doctissimum.' 

'^  Elogium  Hemstershusii,  p.  xvi :  '  Complectar  brevi  et  non  exaggerandae  rei 
causa,  sad  simpliciter  ac  vere  hoc  dico,  Hemstershusium  graecarum  scientia 
literarum  omnino  omnes  qui  inde  a  renatis  Uteris  excellenter  in  iis  versati 
sint,  ipsum  etiam  Isaacum  Casaubonum,  cui  doctorum  hominum  consensus 
primas  deferre  solet,  longo  post  se  intervallo  reliquisse.' 

'  In  the  printed  volume  of  Casaubon's  epistles,  Rot.  1709,  there  are  five 
addressed  to  Andrew  Downes,  in  greek.  The  answers  of  Downes  are 
preserved,  Brit.  Mus.  Burney  mss.  vol.  363.  As  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge 
in  such  a  matter,  the  Cambridge  professor  has  the  advantage  in  point  of 
style  and  rhythm,  while  Casaubon  has  a  larger  vocabulary,  and  more  command 
of  idiom. 


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456  fSAAC  CASAUBON.  [Seci'. 

M.  Germain,  in  a  memoir  on  Casaubon  at  Montpellier ', 
tells  us  that  Casaubon  'had  an  astonishing  aptitude  in 
collating  the  various  mss.  of  an  ancient  author,  and  ehciting 
the  original  reading.'  Whatever  other  merits  Casaubon's 
editions  may  have  had  in  their  day,  that  of  a  text  regularly 
formed  by  collation  was  not  one.  A  survey  of  the  existing 
written  tradition,  such  as  is  now  required  of  any  text  editor, 
was  an  idea  unknown  to  his  age.  But  Casaubon  was 
even  behind  his  age  in  this  respect.  He  never  attempted 
collation.  He  did  not  even  construct  a  text  out  of  the 
materials  in  his  hands.  His  proceeding  was  the  rude  pro- 
ceeding which  the  italian  humanists  of  a  century  before  had 
employed.  This  was,  in  difficult  passages,  to  look  into  his 
MSS,  and  select  that  reading  which  seemed  to  suit  the  sense 
best.  Though  he  had  at  his  command  the  treasures  of  the 
royal  and  medicean  libraries,  he  never  used  them  for  the 
establishment  of  a  text.  But  he  made  ample  use  of  them 
for  that  which  was  his  true  vocation — extensive  reading. 

His  available  resources  for  emendation  being  feeble  and 
casual,  he  must  have  recourse  to  conjecture.  Conjectural 
emendation  is  a  practice  in  which  the  scholar  may  revel  as 
exercise,  but  which  the  diplomatist,  who  is  constructing  a 
text,  ever  regards  with  suspicion.  Of  the  merits  of  Cas- 
aubon's conjectures  I  am  not  competent  to  judge.  Their 
character  appears  to  be  the  suggestions  of  realist  know- 
ledge, rather  than  of  tact  of  language.  They  are  numer- 
ous, but  he  is  helpful  rather  in  correcting  the  minor 
blunders  of  the  copyist  in  a  tolerably  ascertained  context, 
than  in  those  desperate  and  deeply  seated  ulcers,  which 
are  apt  to  gather  round  an  old  wound.  The  rights  of 
rational  conjecture,  and  the  necessity  of  sometimes  over- 
ruling both  the  antiquity,  and  the  consent,  of  mss,  are  as 
peremptorily  asserted  by  Casaubon  as  by  Cobet  *.    But  in 

'  Acad.  d.  sciences  et  d.  lettres  de  Montpellier,  5.  208 :  '  Une  etonnante 
aptitude  a  conf^rer  entre  eux  les  mss.  des  anciens  auteurs  pour  en  retrouver  la 
le9on  originale.'  *  See  note  E  in  Appendix. 


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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  457 

practice,  in  the  exercise  of  this  right  which  he  claims,  he 
is  very  conservative  ^.  '  Haec  lectio  non  placet,  placeret 
Juniana,  si  esset  ex  libris  ^.'  '  Torrentius'  conjecture  is 
very  clever  ;  but  I  cannot  adopt  it  in  the  teeth  of  all  the  mss, 
from  which  I  can  never  depart,  except  when  it  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  ;  and  in  this  rule  I  am  sure  a  man  so 
learned  as  Torrentius  will  agree  with  me.'  And  in  the 
short  notes  on  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  he  says  *, 
'  What  need  here,  I  ask,  of  conjecture  ?  No  sound  scholar 
will  ever  hesitate  to  reject  a  conjecture,  however  plausible, 
when  it  is  against  ms.  authority.' 

The  language  was  to  Casaubon  not  an  end,  but  a  means. 
He  never  speaks  with  unscholarlike  superciliousness  of 
the  minutiae  of  grammatical  technic  ;  but  he  never  dwells 
on  these  minutiae  with  pedantic  self-complacency.  He 
would  not  dispense  with  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
language.  But  he  sought  through  it  to  penetrate  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  thoughts  conveyed  by  the  language. 
Here,  where  the  call  is  upon  the  memory  of  an  attentive 
and  observant  reader,  is  his  forte.  He  can  bring  to 
bear  upon  any  one  passage  the  whole  of  the  classics,  ever 
present  in  his  memory.  He  views  the  individual,  to  use 
Bacon's  phrase,  '  ad  naturam  universi.'  As  a  commentator 
he  does  not  overlay  the  difficulty  with  a  crushing  load  of 
collateral  illustration,  but  elucidates  it  with  the  one  ap- 
posite citation.  A  large  class  of  stumblingblocks  in  the 
classics  can  only  be  cleared  by  finding  some  one  other 
passage,  which  suppUes  the  key  to  the  allusion.  This  is 
a  gradual  process,  which  is  being  perfected  from  age  to 
age  *-  The  school  commentary  of  our  day  contains  the 
result  of  four  centuries  of  research.  What  one  has  over- 
looked another  supplies.  In  the  whole  long  history  of 
interpretation,  can  anyone  be  named,  who  from  his  single 

'  Advers.  torn.  60.  °  Sueton.  Claud.  24. 

'  Comm.  in  Dionys.  Hal.  p.   i8s :  '  Conjecturis  obsecro  quid  hie  opus  est  ? 
quas  nemo  satis  qui  sit  sanus,  non  spernet  prae  veteribus  codicibus,  quantumvis 
•  blandiantur.'  *  See  note  F  in  Appendix. 

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458  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

hand  has  contributed  to  the  common  fund  so  much  as 
Isaac  Casaubon  ? 

Casaubon's  editions  must  not  be  compared  with  those 
which  issued  from  the  great  dutch  manufactory  of  the 
Burmanns  and  the  Gronoviuses.  The  '  Variorum '  editors 
were  collectors  of  what  others  had  suggested.  Casaubon 
draws  at  first  hand  from  his  own  original  comparison  of 
texts.  The  system  of  those  editors  was  to  form  a  '  Catena,' 
or  running  commentary  on  a  text,  by  breaking  up  the 
existing  commentaries  into  short  portions,  preserving  the 
words,  and  appending  the  name  of  each  annotator.  It  was 
thus  that  Casaubon's  notes,  all  of  which  were  written  before 
1610,  were  passed  on,  intact,  to  the  middle  of  the  i8th 
century,  and  formed  indeed  the  substantial  part  of  all 
that  the  '  Variorum  '  editors  had  to  offer  on  many  authors. 
The  dutch  editors  shunned  greek,  to  which  they  were 
unequal,  or  they  only  attempted  it  to  give  evidence 
that  greek  was  a  lost  science.  The  Appianus  of  Tollius, 
1670,  the  Apollonius  of  Hoelzlin,  1641, — 'hominum,  qui 
sunt,  fuerunt,  et  erunt  futilissimus' — says  Ruhnken^,  the 
Lucianus  of  Graevius,  1687,  should  be  examined  if  we  wish 
to  know  how  low  greek  had  sunk  in  the  schools  of 
Holland,  and  what  was  the  standard  of  editing  in  the  book- 
market  of  Europe.  If  Maasvicius  was  able  to  make  a  better 
figure  with  his  Polyaenus,  1690,  it  is  because  he  judiciously 
retires  himself  out  of  sight,  and  blazons  on  his  title-page, 
'  Isaaci  Casauboni  notas  adjecit.'  The  trade  demand  for 
the  editions  of  the  greek  classics  was  met  by  reproducing 
the  notes  of  the  scholars  of  the  i6th  century.  Even  a  new 
latin  version  of  a  greek  text  was  a  task  to  which  they  were 
unequal.  So  Maasvicius  reproduces  the  latin  Polyaenus  of 
Vulteius,  1549,  without  alteration,  and  even  without,  as  he 
honestly  confesses^,  comparing  it  with  his  greek  text 
throughout,  with  which  it  by  no  means  corresponds.    The 

'  Ep.  ad  Valcken.  p.  i8. 

^  Polysenus,  1588,  lectori :  '  Cum  graecis  ubique  non  comparavi.' 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  459 

dutch  school,  till  Hemstershusius,  was  a  school  of  latinists. 
Yet,  even  in  a  latin  prose  author,  such  as  Suetonius,  it 
would  not  have  been  safe  for  the  workmen  of  the  Burmann 
manufactory  to  have  revised  Casaubon's  notes,  and  they 
were  accordingly  reproduced  in  extenso  down  to  1736. 
After  this  they  sank  out  of  sight,  the  german  school  of 
Ernesti  and  Wolf  having  power  enough  of  its  own  to 
remodel  annotation  on  Suetonius.  Even  in  1801,  the 
german  Schweighaeuser,  who  ventured  upon  Athenaeus, 
found  that  he  could  not  do  better  than  give  the  whole  of 
Casaubon's  notes.  And,  to  this  hour,  no  one  has  attempted 
(1874)  such  a  commentary  on  Athenaeus,  as  shall  merge 
Casaubon  in  the  way  in  which  his  notes  on  Persius  have 
been  absorbed  in  the  Clarendon  Persius  of  Conington  and 
Nettleship.  As  lately  as  1833,  Casaubon's  notes  on  Persius 
were  reprinted  in  Germany  entire,  in  compliance  with 
a  suggestion  of  Passow  ^.  His  commentary  on  Strabo,  of 
which  he  was  himself  ashamed,  has  not  been  superseded, 
and  was  reprinted  in  1818,  in  the  Variorum  ed.  of 
Tzschucke  ^.  The  commentaries  on  Athenaeus  and 
Theophrastus  must  still  be  in  the  hands  of  every  student 
of  greek  literature. 

No  other  scholar  of  the  sixteenth  century  can  be  named, 
whose  commentary  on  any  ancient  writer  has  remained  so 
long  as  the  standard  commentary.  All  have  contributed 
something  to  the  common  stock  of  explanation  ;  no  other 
than  Casaubon  has  left  one  which  stands  in  its  entirety 
unsurpassed.  When  we  consider  that,  in  the  elucidation 
of  an  ancient  text,  time  is  more  than  genius,  and  a  new  ms. 
more  than  the  keenest  faculty  of  divination,  we  shall 
appreciate  Casaubon's  superiority  over  his  successors,  in 
his  command  of  the  means  and  materials  of  interpretation. 


'  Persius,  ed.  F.  Duebner,  lectori:  'Ante  hos  viginti  tres  annos  celeb. 
Passovius  significaverat  .  .  .  Casaubonum  edendum  esse  integrum,  reliquos 
excerpendos  esse  omnes.' 

"  The  publication  of  the  edition  was  broken  off  at  the  third  book. 


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46o  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect, 

It  was  not  only  by  industrious  compilation,  and  the 
relevant  application  of  a  complete  classical  reading,  that 
Casaubon's  commentary  is  thus  distinguished.  He  has 
also  the  enviable  gift  of  presenting  the  object  as  it  is 
(Veranschaulichung).  This  was  due  not  to  the  possession 
of  a  poetic  imagination,  but  to  its  absence.  He  lights  the 
object  with  no  subjective  radiance,  and  decorates  it  with  no 
ornament.  His  style  as  an  annotator,  flat  and  prosaic  as  it 
is,  is  direct.  He  grasps  at  the  real  difficulties,  arid  tries  to 
clear  them  in  the  shortest  way.  He  had  the  inestimable 
advantage,  denied  to  us,  of  not  acquiring  his  first  conception 
at  second  hand.  We  read  so  much  about  the  ancients,  in 
books  written  about  them  by  moderns,  that  our  notion  of 
antiquity  is  inevitably  coloured  by  this  modern  medium. 

We  have  learnt  to  prefer  to  have  our  ancient  history 
drugged  with  modern  politics,  by  Droysen,  or  Grote,  or 
Mommsen,  as  the  vitiated  taste  prefers  sherry  to  the  pure 
juice  of  the  grape.  Casaubon  owed  this  advantage  in  part 
to  his  self-education,  of  which  he  was  always  complaining 
as  a  blight  upon  his  development  ^.  He  lost  something  by 
this,  in  point  of  language,  he  gained  much  by  it,  in  point  of 
precision  of  representation.  He  went  in  his  nineteenth 
year  straight  to  the  greek  and  latin  authors,  and  read 
them  through,  thus  forming  his  first  impressions  of  the 
ancients  directly  from  what  they  have  said  of  themselves. 
It  cost  him  more  trouble  to  learn,  but  then  he  had 
nothing  to  unlearn.  As  Goethe  somewhere  says,  'The 
difficulty  lies  not  in  learning  but  in  unlearning,'  a  sentiment 
which  Casaubon  himself  had  quoted  ^  from  an  older  author 
than  Goethe.  Menage  ^  gave  as  a  reason  for  not  reading 
Moreri's  Dictionary,  that  it  contained  errors,  and  if  he  got 
them  into  his  head,  he  should  not  be  able  to  get  them 
out  again. 

^  Ep.  995  ;  o^i/ia^cr?  koX  oKiyov  Seen  eirruv  avToSiSaKToi. 

'  Exercitt.   in    Baron,   p.    485 ;    '  rd  fUTaSiSaaKetv  x"^f''''"''aToj'    ait    alicubi 
Chrysostomus '  [i.  e.  Dio  Ciirysostomus,  Or.  xi.  p.  307  Reiske]. 
^  Menagiana,  i.  84. 

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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  461 

This  habit  of  direct  intuition  he  owed  to  his  self-education  ; 
his  love  of  truth  he  owed  to  his  protestant  education. 
Love  of  truth  is  the  foundation  of  all  research  and  all 
learning,  and  is  indeed  only  the  desire  of  knowledge 
under  another  name.  This  mental  habit  is,  it  may  be 
thought,  universally  diffused  among  mankind.  Upon  it 
are  founded  all  the  ordinary  transactions  of  every  day  life, 
no  less  than  the  judicial  procedure  of  the  law  courts,  and 
the  experiments  of  the  laboratory.  Why  should  it  be 
singled  out  as  a  merit  in  Casaubon,  when  it  is  only  shared 
by  him  in  common  with  every  humbler  student  who  has 
ever  attempted  philological  research  ?  Those  only  who 
are  intimately  conversant  with  the  period  of  which  we 
write,  will  know  that  of  that  period  this  assumption  would 
not  be  true.  It  was  by  the  cultivation  of  this  intellectual 
virtue  that  the  protestant  scholars  of  France  were  dis- 
tinguished, and  to  this  they  owe  their  immeasurable 
superiority  over  the  catholic  school  of  french  Hellenists. 

The  attitude  of  the  orthodox  party  towards  classical 
studies  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century — in  the 
time  of  Erasmus — was  one  of  pure  antipathy.  This  phase, 
of  hostility  to  the  'new  learning,'  under  pretence  of 
reverence  for  the  old,  has  been  handed  down  to  us  by  the 
broad  and  exaggerated  satire  of  the  '  Epistolae  obscurorum 
virorum.'  We  have  seen  the  traces  of  this  disposition 
lingering  into  the  seventeenth  century  in  Eudaemon^ 
Joannes '  sneers  at  Casaubon  for  not  having  had  a  regular 
education,  for  being  a  '  grammarian,'  and  more  conversant 
with  Suetonius  than  with  logic.  But  notwithstanding 
occasional  sallies  of  this  kind,  the  attitude  of  the  church 
party  towards  classical  learning  had  been  entirely  changed 
before  1600.  The  practised  eye  of  the  Jesuits,  surveying, 
from  the  centre  of  politics,  all  walks  of  human  endeavour, 
saw  that  more  capital  could  be  made  for  Rome  by  espousing 
classics,  than  by  prohibiting  them.  Jesuit  education  was 
formed    upon    a    classical    basis,    in    opposition   to    the 


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46a  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

scholastic  basis  of  the  university.  Grammar  and  rhetoric 
became  leading  subjects  in  their  schools,  including  a  large 
share  of  greek.  More  than  this,  Jesuits  who  had  a  turn 
for  reading  were  allowed  to  devote  themselves  to  study, 
and  encouraged  and  assisted  in  the  publication  of  learned 
works.  '  Learned '  they  are  entitled  to  be  called  by  courtesy, 
for  the  works  of  Schott,  Sirmond,  and  Petavius,  have  all 
the  attributes  of  learning  but  one, — one,  to  want  which 
leaves  all  learning  but  a  tinkling  cymbal  — that  is,  the  love 
of  truth.  The  Jesuit  scholars  introduced  into  philological 
research  the  temper  of  unveracity  which  had  been  from  of 
old  the  literary  habit  of  their  church.  An  interested  motive 
lurks  beneath  each  word  ;  the  motive  of  church  patriotism. 
The  same  spirit  which  produced  the  false  decretals 
in  the  seventh  century',  reappears  in  the  Jesuit  literature 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  '  Can  we  doubt,'  exclaims  Cas- 
aubon  ^,  '  that  the  disease  of  our  age  is  a  hatred  of  truth  ? ' 
An  earnest  love  of  truth,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  philological  effort  of  the  protestant 
scholars.  Errors  they  make,  and  plenty.  The  books  of  the 
generation  which  followed  Casaubon  are  largely  seasoned 
with  corrections  of  his  errata  ^.  It  may  often  happen  that 
Scaliger  is  wrong,  and  Petavius  right.  But  single-eyed 
devotion  to  truth  is  an  intellectual  quality,  the  absence  of 
which  is  fatal  to  the  value  of  any  investigation.  Jesuit 
learning  is  a  sham  learning  got  up  with  great  ingenuity  in 
imitation  of  the  genuine,  in  the  service  of  the  church.     It 


'  Du  Perron  repeatedly  told  Casaubon  that  'Gratianus  was  unjustly  sus- 
pected, there  being  at  most  two  places  doubtful.'  Adversaria,  ap.  Wolf.  p.  177 : 
'  Audivi  Perronum  saepe  mihi  affirmantem  falso  suspectam  esse  fidem  Gratiani,' 
etc. 

2  Burmann,  Syll.  i.  359 :  '  Dubitamus  adhuc  /uaaXTjeeuf.  laborare  hoc 
seculum.' 

'  E.  g.  Crenius,  Animadv.  phil.  et  hist.  p.  88.  Casaubon  had  affirmed,  N.  T. 
Matth.  23.  15,  that  Judas  Iscariot  is  called,  in  another  place,  vlbs  aXiepov.  The 
phrase  is  never  used  in  the  N.  T. ;  it  occurs  in  Nonnus'  paraphrase  of  John 
17.  12.  Henri  Valois,  both  in  the  '  Excerpta  ex  collectaneis,'  1634  and  in  the 
'  Emendationum  libri,'  1740,  abounds  in  such  corrections. 


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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  463 

is  related  of  the  Chinese  that  when  they  first,  in  the  war  of 
1841,  saw  the  effect  of  our  steam  vessels,  they  set  up  a  fun- 
nel and  made  a  smoke  with  straw  on  the  deck  of  one  of 
their  junks  in  imitation,  while  the  paddles  were  turned  by 
men  below.  Such  a  mimicry  of  the  philology  of  Scaliger 
and  Casaubon  was  the  philology  of  the  Jesuit.  It  was 
vitiated  by  its  arrifere-pensee.  The  search  for  truth  was 
falsified  by  its  interested  motive,  the  interest  not  of  an 
individual,  but  of  a  party.  It  was  that  caricature  of  the  good 
and  great  and  true,  which  the  good  and  great  and  true 
invariably  calls  into  being ' ;  a  phantom  which  sidles  up 
against  the  reality,  mouths  its  favourite  words  as  a  third- 
rate  actor  does  a  great  part,  undermimics  its  wisdom,  over- 
acts its  folly,  is  by  half  the  world  taken  for  it,  goes  some 
way  to  suppress  it  in  its  own  time,  and  lives  for  it  in  history. 

That  Casaubon's  conception  of  the  antique  world  was 
either  pure  or  adequate,  is  not  hereby  meant.  It  was 
very  far  from  being  either.  With  all  his  honesty  of 
purpose,  and  directness  of  aim,  he  was  not  strong  enough 
to  be  uninfluenced  by  the  ecclesiastical  temper  of  his  age. 
We  see  this  in  so  slight  a  matter  as  the  interpretation, of 
the  Triopian  inscription,  discovered  in  1607  ^,  which,  in  his 
anxiety  to  get  a  confirmation  of  gospel  history,  he  applied 
to  the  Jewish  Herod,  instead  of  to  H erodes  Atticus. 

His  limitations  were  many  and  inevitable.  As  an 
interpreter  of  ancient  life  he  could  only  render  so  much  as 
he  apprehended.     No  one  can  apprehend  of  a  past  age 


'  Friends  in  Council,  1.  67. 

2  See  his  '  Inscriptio  vetus  grseca,'  etc.  fol.  s.  1.  et  a.  Welser,  a  catholic,  at 
once  detected  Casaubon's  error,  and  informed  Hoeschel  of  it.  Burney  mss 
364.  p.  288.  Hoeschel  passed  on  the  correction  to  Casaubon,  who  instantly 
acknowledged  it,  and  promised  to  correct  it,  if  he  should  have  the  opportunity 
of  a  second  edition.  Ep.  607.  What  Casaubon  did  not  do,  Saumaise  did,  in 
his  '  Inscriptio  Herodis.'  Crenius,  '  Museum  philologicum,'  Lugd.  Bat.  1699, 
reprinted  both  commentaries,  thus  reproducing  error  which  had  been  abandoned 
by  its  author.  See  Thesaurus  epistolicus  Lacrozianus,  3.  40.  On  the  other 
hand,  Casaubon  was  not  deceived,  as  many  Italians  were,  by  the  inscriptions  in 
Poliphilo.     See  Hist.  Aug.  Scriptores. 


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464  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  [Sect. 

more  than  he  can  apprehend  of  his  own.  ^ '  The  past  is 
reflected  to  us  by  the  present.'  Casaubon  knew  of  his  own 
age  so  much  as  the  average  of  educated  men  know.  The 
private  antiquities  of  Greece  and  Rome  are,  for  this  reason, 
open  to  all  men,  for  every  man  '  must  have  a  full  conception 
of  the  coat  he  wears,  and  the  house  he  lives  in.'  In  public 
affairs,  Casaubon  apprehends  the  general  machinery  of 
political  action,  as  it  shows  itself  on  the  surface  of  events, 
and  takes  an  average  view  of  the  springs  of  human  action. 
The  man,  with  whom  Henri  iv.  could  hold  long  con- 
versations on  the  positions  of  religious  parties  in  France, 
cannot  have  been  an  uninformed  looker  on  at  the  great 
struggles  of  the  time.  The  greater  political  problems  he 
does  not  approach.  Polybius'  philosophy  of  history  is 
Casaubon's  philosophy.  Though  he  had  edited  Aristotle, 
and  read  many  of  the  Aristotelian  books  with  care  ^,  he 
has  written  nothing  which  throws  any  light  on  the  course 
of  greek  thought.  He  was  not  master  of  the  contents  of 
greek  philosophical  speculation,  nor  even  aware  of  its 
importance  as  a  factor  of  history,  or  of  the  place  it  holds  in 
greek  literature. 

Here,  again,  the  Hmitation  was  not  in  the  man,  but  in 
the  age.  It  needed  two  centuries  more  of  speculative 
effort  in  Europe,  before  philologians  could  go  back  to  greek 
philosophy  with  the  key  of  it  in  their  hands.  It  is  only 
indeed  within  the  present  century  that  learning  has  grown 
strong  enough  to  cope  with  the  exposition  of  Aristotle, 

'  Arnold,  Lectures,  p.  109:  'This  is  the  reason  why  scholars  and  anti- 
quarians have  written  so  uninstructively  of  the  ancient  world.  They  could  do 
no  otherwise,  for  they  did  not  understand  the  world  around  them.  How  can 
he  comprehend  the  parties  of  other  days,  who  has  no  clear  notion  of  those 
of  his  own  ?  What  sense  can  he  have  of  the  progress  of  the  great  contest 
of  human  affairs  in  its  earlier  stages,  when  it  rages  around  him  at  this  actual 
moment  unnoticed,  or  felt  to  be  no  more  than  a  mere  indistinct  hubbub 
of  sounds,  and  confusion  of  weapons  ?  What  cause  is  in  the  issue  he  knows 
not.' 

^  Adversaria,  tom.  16,  contains  collections  out  of  Aristotle  and  his  greek 
commentators.  In  Brit.  Mus.  is  an  analysis  of  the  'Analytics,'  in  Casaubon's 
hand,  such  as  might  be  made  by  a  person  reading  the  book  for  the  first  time. 


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X.]  CHARACTERISTIC.  46,5 

and  an   edition  of  the  Aristotelic  encyclopaedia  is  still 
a  vision  of  the  future*. 

And  as  to  Casaubon's  want  of  political  instruction,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  we  go  to  greek  history  with 
three  centuries  of  additional  experience.  In  1614,  de 
Thou's  History  was  the  last  word  of  political  wisdom,  and 
de  Thou's  life  had  been  spent  in  one  uniform  struggle — 
resistance  to  the  clerical  reaction.  This  situation  produced 
a  simplicity,  and  at  the  same  time  a  narrowness,  in  the 
political  ideas  of  the  age.  All  the  energies  of  the  states- 
man, all  the  wisdom  of  the  politician,  were  absorbed  in  the 
effort  to  stem  the  rising  tide  of  ecclesiastical  invasion.  We 
cannot  wonder  that  Casaubon  too  should  not  have  seen 
beyond  the  emergency.  But  as  he  became  gradually 
engaged  with  the  details  of  the  controversy,  he  became 
less  able  as  an  interpreter  of  the  document.  His  greatest 
failure  was  in  handling  church  antiquity,  because  he  was 
searching  it  as  an  armoury  of  consecrated  precedent,  not 
with  the  analysis  of  the  critical  historian.  His  love  of 
truth,  though  it  did  not  forsake  him,  was  obscured  by  the 
zeal  of  the  partisan.  The  cause  may  have  been  a  righteous 
one  ;  the  war  of  resistance  to  clerical  aggression  may  have 
been  a  just  and  necessary  war.  The  publicist,  the  legist, 
the  statesman  who,  at  the  opening  of  the  17th  century, 
contended  against  the  church  revival  of  their  day,  have 
a  title  to  be  enrolled  in  the  list  of  worthies  or  benefactors. 
But  for  all  this,  it  remains  true,  that  in  the  intellectual 
sphere  grasp  and  mastery  are  incompatible  with  the 
exigencies  of  a  struggle.  When,  in  the  very  conception  of 
the  problem,  the  intellectual  activity  is  engaged  in  the 
service  of  a  religious  interest,  a  scientific  solution  cannot 
be  looked  for  \    To  search  antiquity  with  a  polemical  object 

*  See  note  G  in  Appendix. 

'  Zeller,  Gesch.  d.  griech.  Philos.  4.  17  :  'Wenn  schon  durch  die  Fassung 
der  Aufgabe  die  wissenschaftliche  Thatigkeit  in  den  Dienst  des  religiOsen 
Jnteresses   gezogen  war,   so  musste  es  sich   im  weiteren  Verlaufe   vollends 

H  h 
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466  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

is  destructive  of  that  equilibrium  of  the  reason,  the  imagi- 
nation, and  the  taste,  that  even  temper  of  philosophical 
calm,  that  singleness  of  purpose,  which  are  required  in 
order  that  a  past  time  may  mirror  itself  on  the  mind  in  true 
outline  and  proportions. 

herausstellen,  dass  eine  wissenschaftliche  LOsung  derselben  unter  den  ge- 
gebenen  Voraussetzungen  unmOglich  sei.' 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECTION   X. 
Note  A.  p.  41.9. 

TRANSLATED   OUT    OF   FRENCHE. 

Casaubon's  Will,  dated  June  21,  1614. 

There  being  nothinge  more  certaine  to  man  then  death 
and  nothinge  more  incertaine  then  the  houre  thereof  and 
desyringe  to  provide  that  death  surprise  mee  not  before  I  make 
my  latter  Will  havinge  as  yet  by  the  mercie  of  God  the  use  of 
all  my  senses  and  of  my  reason  understandinge  and  judgement 
I  have  thought  it  necessary  shortly  to  declare  myne  estate  and 
latter  Will  as  it  foUowes  I  doe  confesse  and  protest  that  I  Hue 
and  dye  in  that  true  and  liuely  fayth  whereby  the  just  man  Hues 
which  is  taught  us  in  Holy  Scripture  And  that  I  belieue  ye 
remission  of  all  my  sinnes  by  the  sheddinge  of  the  moste 
pretious  bloode  of  myne  onely  Savior  Mediator  and  Advocate 
Jesus  Christ  in  whose  hands  I  doe  giue  over  and  comend 
myself  beseechinge  him  that  he  would  sanctifie  me  throughlie 
and  keepe  my  whole  spirit  soule  and  bodie  w*hout  blemish  vnto 
his  last  cofflinge  I  leaue  my  body  to  be  buried  in  the  ground  in 
a  Christian  manner  w^hout  all  vnnecessarie  pompe  or  shewe  to 
be  made  partaker  of  the  blessed  resurrection  at  the  latter  daye 
w<=l>  I  doe  expect  and  belieue  w*^  a  stedfast  fayth  As  for  my 
goods  Wli  the  Lorde  hath  lent  me  Wli  I  shall  leaue  the  day  of 
my  decease  my  will  is  that  my  debtes  which  shalbe  founde 
lawfull  shalbee  payd  Therefter  I  give  to  the  French  Church 
assembled  in  London  five  and  twenty  French  Crownes  And 
to  the  poors  of  this  parish  where  I  dwell  five  French  Crownes 
To  the  Library  of  the  French  Church  in  London  fowre  of  my 
greatest  books  amonge  the  fathers  And  my  Gregory  Nyssen 
Manuscript  To  my  Nephewe  M'  Chabane  one  of  my  Hip- 
pocrates As  concerninge  all  my  goodes  whatsoever  present  or 
to  come  moueable  or  vnmoueable  I  doe  appointe  that  my  wyfe 

H  h  2 

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468  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X. 

have  it  in  her  choyce  either  to  take  herself  to  her  contract  of 
marriage  wherein  is  to  be  fownde  whatsoever  I  haue  received 
before,  and  since  the  death  of  her  father  Henry  Steuen  of 
happie  memory  or  to  take  herself  to  the  just  halfe  of  all  my 
goodes  which  shall  remaine  behinde  that  beinge  exempted 
whereof  mention  was  made  before  As  for  the  other  halfe  w* 
shall  remaine  I  will  not  that  my  Sonne  John  Cassaubon  haue 
any  parte  thereof  by  onlye  one  Cup  of  the  value  of  Thirty 
Crownes  the  reasons  of  this  my  Will  are  knowne  unto  him 
Item  I  will  and  ordayne  that  each  one  of  my  daughters  haue 
two  hundred  crownes  vj'^^  being  done  my  meaninge  is  that  the 
whole  remnant  bee  equally  divided  amonge  my  sonnes  and 
daughters  except  that  to  that  sonne  who  walkinge  in  the  feare 
of  God  shalbe  fittest  to  sustayne  my  family  I  doe  giue  the  Cup 
of  My  Scaliger  of  moste  happie  memory  aboue  and  besides  that 
portion  which  shall  fall  to  him  of  the  foresayd  half  or  remnant 
of  my  goodes  the  Cup  of  thirtie  Crownes  for  my  sonne  John 
and  the  two  hundred  crownes  for  each  one  of  my  daughters 
beinge  first  abated  Neverthelesse  if  any  of  my  children  sonne 
or  daughter  presume  to  fynde  fault  w*^  or  call  in  question  this 
my  last  Will  or  be  disobeydient  to  my  wife  their  mother  I  leaue 
to  my  wife  all  power  and  authority  to  depriue  such  a  one  of 
soe  muche  of  their  porcion  as  she  shall  thinke  good  being  there- 
vnto  well  counselled  and  approved  by  the  Overseers  of  this  my 
Testament  that  shalbe  there  where  she  for  the  t3mie  shall  remaine 
Moreover  if  it  please  God  to  call  to  himselfe  one  or  more  of  my 
children  before  they  be  married  or  come  to  age  I  will  that  their 
portion  be  divided  amonge  the  rest  that  doe  surviue  by  equall 
portions  my  sonne  John  excepted  And  to  the  intent  that  this 
my  Testament  may  be  put  in  execution  I  leaue  and  ordayne  my 
wife  the  onely  Executrix  thereof  intreatinge  my  trusty  freinds 
Mr  Theodore  Turquet  de  Maierne  Raphaell  Torris  and  Phillippe 
Bourlamarqui  to  ayde  her  as  Curators  in  those  things  which  be 
on  this  side  of  the  Sea  And  my  trusty  frends  M''  Josias  Mercere 
Sqi"  des  Bordes  Desier  Herauet  Advocate  and  M^  Arbant  Doctor 
of  Phisick  for  those  affaires  that  be  beyond  Seas  In  witnesse 
whereof  and  of  that  w"!*  is  before  set  downe  I  haue  subsigned 
wth  my  hand  and  sealed  wt^i  my  seale  this  my  latter  Will  in 
presence  of  them  that  be  after  named  this  Tewsday  the  one 
and  twentieth  of  June  the  yeare  of  o""  Lorde  one  thousand  sixe 
hundred   and    fowerteene — Isaack   Cassaubon — Signed    sealed 

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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X.  469 

and   delivered   in  the  presence   of  us— Aron   Cappell    David 
Codelongue — William  Jane — et  me — Thomam  Elam  Scrivener. 

Probatum  fuit  Testamentum  suprascriptum  apud  London 
coram  Magro  Edmundo  Pope  legum  Doctore  Surrogate  Vene- 
rabilis  viri  Dflj  Johnis  Benet  milits  legum  etiam  Doctors  Curie 
Prerogative  Cant  Magrj  Custodis  sive  Commissarij  Itime  con- 
stitut  Tricesimo  die  Mensis  Julij  Ano  Dominj  Millesimo  sex- 
centesimo  Decimo  quarto  Juramento  Florentise  Cassaubon  relae 
dictj  defuncti  et  executrics  in  eodem  testamento  nominat  Cuj 
comissa  fuit  administraco  omniu  et  singulor  bonore  jurium  et 
creditorum  dictj  defunctj  De  bene  et  fideliter  administrand 
eadem  Ad  sancta  Dej  Evangelia  in  debita  juris  forma  jurat. 


Note  B.  p.  424. 
The  History  of  Isaac  Casaubon' s  Papers. 

For  the  transcript  of  the  following  letter,  and  remarks  upon 
it,  I  am  indebted  to  M.  Charles  Thurot,  through  the  mediation 
of  Mr.  Thursfield,  of  Jesus  College. 

Bibl.  Nat.  fonds  'Moreau,  t.  846.  f".  56. 

Clariss.  doctissimoque  viro,  Dflo  Philiberto  De  la  mare,  Meri- 
cus  Casaubonus,  Is.  F.  S.  P.  D.  Quod  quaeris,  vir  clarissime, 
an  Jacobi  Guiionj,  rerum  apud  ^duos  capitalium  quaesitoris, 
aliquid  seu  prosa,  seu  versu  scriptum,  inter  cimelia  b.  m.  parentis 
repertum  servem,  in  promptu  responsio,  simplex,  aperta,  brevis, 
quae  veritati  conveniat,  quae  conscientiae  meae,  cuius  praecipua 
apud  me  semper  erit  ratio,  abunde  satisfaciat ;  Non  habeo.  Sed 
quia  dum  tenorem  tuarum  literarum  attentius  considero,  vix  spero 
me  tam  accuratae  scriptioni  nisi  accurata  responsione  satisfac- 
turum,  dabo  hoc  communibus  studiis  (quae  si  non  semper,  alia 
professus,  excolui,  numquam  tamen  non  sancte  colui :)  tuoque 
de  Uteris  bene  merendi  studio,  quod  pluribus,  ut  de  propria 
non  tantum  conscientia,  sed  et  tua  opinione  sollicitus,  respon- 
deam.  Narro  igitur  tibi,  vir  doctissime,  patre  in  Anglia  defuncto, 
omnia  eius  Adversaria,  et  mst^  cuiuscunque  generis,  (paucis 
quibusdam  Theologicis  exceptis,  quae  Regis  Seren.  iussu,  Lan- 
celoto  Andreae,  summo  viro,  Episcopo  tum  Eliensi,  sunt  in 
manus  tradita:)   Lutetiam  translata  esse,  ubi  cum  per  ahquot 


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470  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X. 

annos  in  custodia  piae  matris,  aut   quibus  mater  commiteret, 
(oM  commiseret,)  fuissent,  tandem  in  manus  fratris  natu  maioris 
(qui  postea  Capuchinum  professus  obiit)  pervenisse.     Ilium  pro 
arbitrio  de  quibusdam  disposuisse,  et  non  uni  gratificatum  esse, 
certo  scio.     Quinto  demum  vel  sexto  post  obitum  patris  anno, 
cum  ille  meus  charissimus  frater  mundo  curisque  saecularibus 
renuntiasset,  et  ego  ad  aliquam  maturitatem  pervenissem  (ut 
qui  annum  turn   agerem   nonum    supra    decimum)   quod    erat 
reliquorum  msto™"".    (nam    libri    edit,    paucissimi    supererant) 
matre  ita  statuente,  et  fratre  non  nolente,  mihi  cessit.     Quare 
an  pater  olim  aliquid  tale,  quale  conjicis  et  requiris,  habuerit, 
meum  non  est  pronuntiare.      Sed  quo  magis  tibi  liqueat,  me 
certe  tale  nihil  aut  habere  aut  habuisse,  amplius  te  moneo,  quic- 
quid  erat  Patris  in  isto  genere,  postquam  ope  amicorum  adiutus 
et  quanta  maxima  potui  sedulitate  usus  conquisivissem,  mihique 
comparassem,  id  omne  in  accuratissimum  syllabum  redegi,  qui 
quid   quisque   liber   contineret,  (ne   sparsis   et  solutis  quidem 
chartulis  omissis)  indicaret.     Eum  postea  syllabum  baud  paucis 
pro  re  nata,  communicavi,  nee  defuere  qui  exempla  eius  a  me 
postularent,  et  obtinerent.     Praeterea,  quicunque  me  (quod  non 
pauci  fecerunt,)  viri  docti  seu  Galli,  seu  Belgae,  aliive  in  trans- 
cursu   Cantuariam   praetereuntes    inviserent,    eis    ego   omnem 
librariam  suppellectilem  libere  prompsi,  non  ut  auferrent  quic- 
quam,    sed   ut  viderent   quod   vellent,   et   praesentes,    pro   sui 
quisque   otii   et   negotii   ratione,   legerent.      Omnium   istorum, 
ubicunque   sunt,  fidem  appello,  an  quicquam  Jacobi  Guiionii, 
vel  in  syllabo,  vel  inter  ipsa  cimelia  repererint.      At,  inquis, 
Guiionio  arctissima  cum  parente  meo  consuetudo  intercedebat. 
Pace  tua  dixerim,  vir  clarissime,  hoc  tibi  gratis  credam  necesse 
est.     Epistolarum  patris  ad  diversos  magnum  volumen  nuper 
prodiit  Amstelodami ;  inter  illas,  nulla  ad  Jac.  Guiionium  com- 
pared    Praeter  editas,  habeo  alias  non  paucas ;   sed  nee  inter 
illas,  ulla.     Praeterea,  cum  doctorum  ex  omni,  quam  late  patet 
eruditio,  Europa,  ad  patrem  Epistolas  plurimas  habeam,  ne  inter 
illas  quidem  ulla  Guiionii  ad  patrem ;  quare  etiam  atque  etiam 
te  rogo  ut  huius  familiaritatis  argumenta  quae  tibi  sint  amplius 
expendas.     Quod  si  ita  res  habet,  neque  falsus  es ;  mihi  tamen, 
quaeso,  ne  imputa,  si  expectatione  tua  frustratus  es.     Haec  si 
tibi  satisfaciunt,  valde  gaudeo,  sin  aliter,  superest  ut  in  propriae 
conscientiae  testimonio,  et  in  officij  non  neglecti  (responsionem 
intelligo  quam  potui  accuratiss.)  conscientia  acquiescam.    Vale, 


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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X.  471 

vir  clarissime,  et  meliores  literas  opera  tua  et  eruditione  promo- 
vere  perge.  Cantuariae,  postrid.  Non.  Decemb.  (stylo  Anglic, 
seu  veteri.)  cid  id  cxli. 

L'adresse   de  la  lettre,  qui  porte  encore  le  cachet  en  cire 
rouge',  est  ainsi  con9ue  : — 

Clariss.  doctissimoque  viro,  Philiberto  De  la  Mare,  in 
supremo  Burgundiae  senatu,  consiliario. 

Divione. 
J'ai  reproduit  exactement   I'orthographe  et  la  ponctuation. 
L'^criture  est  tres  bonne.     II  y  a  des  indgalites,  ainsi  il  n'y  a 
pas  de  point  sur  le  second  i  de  Guiwnius  d'abord  ;  ensuite  il  est 
mis.     J'ai  reproduit  cette  inegalit^. 

Un  mot  seul  me  laisse  des  doutes.     Voici  le  passage  exacte- 
ment reproduit 

aut  quibus  Mater  commiseret 

cum  a  dte  d'abord  6crit,  puis  barr^  et  remplacd  par  com  (ainsi 
que  c'est  indiqug  ici).  Dans  ce  qui  suit  aucune  lettre  ne  peut 
faire  de  doute  excepte  celle  qui  est  entre  Ve  et  Vi.  Ni  \'s  ni  le 
t  ne  sont  faits  de  cette  fajon  dans  le  reste  de  la  lettre.  D'ail- 
leurs  commiteret  est  une  faute  d'orthographe,  et  commiseret  n'a 
pas  de  sens.  Peut  etre  a-t-il  voulu  ^crire  commiserit.  \?  commi- 
serat?]  Du  reste,  Ten  tete  de  la  lettre,  l'adresse,  la  date,  et 
les  corrections  faites  dans  le  corps  meme  de  la  lettre  sont  d'une 
autre  main,  probablement  de  la  main  de  Casaubon  lui-meme  qui 
aura  fait  ^crire  la  lettre  par  un  copiste. 

Note  C.  p.  430. 
Goethe  to  Zelter,  Briefwechsel,  6.  616 :  '  Eigentlich  ist  es 
nicht  mein  Bestreben,  in  den  dilstern  Regionen  der  Geschichte 
bis  auf  einen  gewissen  Grad  deutlicher  zu  sehn ;  aber  um  des 
Mannes  willen,  nach  dem  ich  sein  Verfahren,  seine  Absichten, 
seine  Studien  erkannte,  wurden  seine  Interessen  auch  die  mei- 
nigen.  Niehuhr  war  es  eigentlich,  und  nicht  die  romische  Ge- 
schichte, was  mich  beschaftigte.  So  eines  Mannes  tiefer  Sinn 
und  emsige  Weise  ist  eigentlich  das  was  uns  auferbaut.  Die 
sammtlichen  Ackergesetze  gehn  mich  eigentlich  gar  nichts  an, 

'  Ce  cachet  reprtsente  un  lion  avec  une  barre  en  abime  chargde  de  trois 
etoiles.     Le  fond  n'est  pas  indique. 


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473  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X. 

aber  die  Art,  wie  er  sie  aufklart,  wie  er  mir  die  complicirten 
Verhaltnisse  deutlich  macht,  das  ist's  was  mich  fordert,  was 
mir  die  Pflicht  auferlegt,  in  den  Geschaften,  die  ich  iibernehme, 
auf  gleiche  gewissenhafte  Weise  zu  verfahren.' 

Note  D.  p.  443. 

The  Cambridge  miracle  was  reported  to  Casaubon  by  James 
Martin,  whose  letter  has  not  been  preserved.  But  the  substance 
of  it  is  repeated  by  Martin,  in  a  letter  to  Camden,  without 
date,  but  probably  1615.  It  is  printed  in  Camdeni  Epistolse, 
1691.     I  give  an  extract :  — 

'All  the  particulars  of  my  letter  to  him  (Casaubon)  I  cannot 
recount.  The  sum  is  this.  In  Cambridgeshire,  about  twelve 
years  since,  there  hapning  a  great  fire  in  Gambinga,  a  little 
child  being  left  in  the  cradle,  was  uery  strangely  conveyed  out 
of  the  house  being  all  in  a  flame,  into  the  middle  of  the  street ; 
the  linnen-apron  being  all  powdered  with  crosses  ;  an  unknown 
boy  telling  the  maid,  that  wept  and  thought  the  child  was 
burnt,  to  this  effect,  viz.  I  have  thought  on  the  child,  and  have 
delivered  it,  but  go  and  look  for  it.  Now  about  a  year  or  two 
before  this  accident,  there  was  seen  over  the  house  in  the  night 
a  shining  cross  in  the  air,  and  since  that  time  for  these  twelve 
or  thirteen  years  together,  there  have  at  divers  times  fallen 
divers  crosses  upon  the  linnen  of  the  mother  and  sisters  of  this 
child,  now  deceased,  which  sometimes  vanish  of  themselves, 
and  sometimes  are  washed  away.  Some  of  these  myself  have 
seen ;  they  are  of  a  brownish  colour,  and  of  this  form  ^  .  .  . 
This  being  the  principal  though  other  accessaries  there  are, 
which  partly  of  my  own  knowledge,  and  partly  on  the  relation 
of  others  ...  I  related  to  Mr.  Casaubon,  I  make  bold  to  im- 
part to  yourself,  wishing,  if  it  might  be,  that  we  might  come  to 
some  certain  resolution  whence  the  crosses  are,  and  whither 
they  would.' 

As  Casaubon  is  selected  to  have  this  tale,  not  then  recent, 
written  to  him  by  one  who  was  a  stranger  to  him,  we  may  infer 
that  his  curiosity  for  marvels  was  matter  of  notoriety.  His 
reply  is  cautious  : — 

'  I  received  lately  two  letters  from  you.  The  first  transformed 
me  wholly  into  wonder :  without  doubt  the  thing  you  write  of  is 
miraculous;    but  whence,   I  cannot  affirme.     They  may  best 

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APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X.^  473 

conjecture  that  were  eye  witnesses,  or  of  their  neerest  acquaint- 
ance, and  they  that  have  the  spirit  of  discerning.  In  which 
regard  I  leave  the  discussing  thereof  to  the  most  excellent 
divines  of  your  illustrious  university/  (i.e.  Oxford.) 

Note  E.  p.  456. 

Casaubon's  principles  of  emendation  are  fully  stated  in  his 
Prsef.  in  Athenaeum  :  '  Cum  emendandi  veteres  auctores  duplex 
sit  via,  e  libris,  et  ex  ingenio,  utramque  nos  viam  in  corrigendo 
Athenaeo  institimus.  .  .  .  Priore  ilia  opera  vulgatas  editiones  e 
veteribus  libris  auximus  et  emendavimus;  posteriore  hac  et 
vulgatorum  et  manu  etiam  scriptorum  codicum  lectionem  ad 
rectse  rationis  obrussam  exegimus.  Nam  in  scriptis  exemplari- 
bus  vel  antiquissimae  manus  ttoXXo  ftiv  ia-6Xa  noKXa  fie  Xvypd.  Itaque 
in  illis  tractandis  judicio  magno  opus,  magna  eruditione,  nee 
mediocri  usu.'  He  then  refers  those  who  think  that  antiquity, 
and  consent  of  mss,  alone  must  determine  the  reading,  to  the 
well-known  passage  of  Galen.  If  at  other  times  Casaubon  ex- 
presses himself  as  fearful  to  alter  without  ms.  authority,  it  is 
from  a  dread  of  that  reckless  spirit  of  alteration,  which  leads 
the  rash  and  inexperienced  to  tamper  with  every  passage  which 
presents  difficulty,  e.g.  Cas.  Advers.  tom.  60:  'Haec  lectio  non 
•  placet,  placeret  Juniana  si  esset  ex  libris.'  Ibid. :  '  Sequentia 
sine  libris  non  ausim  attingere.'  This  caution  is  no  less  in  the 
spirit  of  Cobet,  cf.  Varise  Lectt.  p.  xii :  '  Tertium  est  vitii  genus, 
in  quod  saepe  juniores  implicari  video,  qui  locum  vitiosum  nacti, 
levibus  et  temerariis  correctiunculis  vexare  malunt,  quam  in- 
tactum  relinquere,  et  ssepe  vitiosis  vitiosiora  substituunt.' 

Note  F.  p.  457. 

On  the  slow  process  by  which  the  full  sense  of  an  ancient 
classic  is  reached,  and  a  commentary  is  perfected,  Reiske  says, 
Theocritus,  Viennas  1765,  praef  p.  37:  'Stupet  animus  meus  et 
psene  cohorrescit,  cum  cogitat  post  tantam,  tot  hominum,  navo- 
rum  hercle  atque  doctorum,  contentionem,  post  tot  annorum 
decursum,  in  hoc  uno  tarn  parum  voluminoso,  tam  levi,  qui 
videatur  quibusdam,  nugacique  poeta  (i.e.  Theocritus)  multum 
tamen  nos  adhucdum  a  perfectione  abesse,  quae  ei  impertiri 
possit.  Sed  hoc  iter  naturae  est.  Sensim  et  pedetentim,  per 
gradus  minutos,  ad  culmen  arcis  ascenditur.' 

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474  APPENDIX  TO  SECT.  X. 


Note  G.  p.  465. 

The  magnitude  of  what  he  undertakes,  who  aims  to  be  a 
classical  scholar,  was  understood  at  least  as  early  as  Erasmus. 
Vita  Orig.  Erasmi  0pp.  8.  426:  'Si  quis  dicat  grammatices 
professionem  nihil  habere  memorabile,  cum  hodie  scholasti- 
corum  collegia  pueris  abundent  grammaticam  profitentibus, 
sciat  olim  senile  et  arduum  fuisse  negotium.  Nee  enim  a 
doctore  expectabatur  declinationum,  conjugationum  et  construc- 
tionum  ratio ;  sed  prseter  sermonis  elegantiam,  prseter  pluri- 
morum  auctorum  lectionem,  prseter  antiquitatis,  et  omnium 
historiarum  notitiam  requirebatur  poetices,  rhetorices,  dialec- 
tices,  arithmetices  et  cosmographise  musicesque  cognitio.  Mi- 
nore  negotio  tres  Juris  doctores  absolveris  quam  unum  gram- 
maticum,  qualis  fuit  Aristarchus  apud  Graecos,  apud  Latinos 
Servius  et  Donatus.' 


Note. 

Some  explanation  may  be  called  for  of  the  mode  of  writing 
proper  names  adopted  in  these  pages.  It  may  be  objected  to 
the  author  that  he  ought  to  have  adhered  to  one  or  the  other 
nomenclature,  i.  e.  either  the  latinised  or  the  vernacular  form. 
Upon  trial,  however,  this  was  found  to  be  impossible.  Some 
names  being  of  more  frequent  occurrence  than  others,  have  so 
established  themselves  in  the  latinised  form,  that  it  is  now  im- 
possible to  depart  from  it.  We  must  write  Scaliger,  Beza, 
Grotius,  Lipsius,  Vulcanius,  Scriverius,  Canisius,  and  cannot 
without  affectation  substitute  de  L'escale,  de  Beze,  van  Groot, 
Lips,  Smidt,  Schryver,  de  Hondt.  On  the  other  hand,  wherever 
usage  seemed  sufficient  to  warrant  me,  I  have  chosen  the  ver- 
nacular name.  I  have  said  Estienne,  and  not  Stephanus  (except 
when  speaking  of  the  'Thesaurus'),  Saumaise,  and  not  Salma- 
sius,  de  Thou,  and  not  Thuanus,  Labbe,  and  not  Labbseus. 

Though  I  have  said  Fra  Paolo,  and  not  Father  Paul,  I  have 
written  Bellarmine  and  not  Bellarmino.  This  practice  is  quite 
indefensible  on  any  ground  of  principle.  The  only  object  of 
this  note  is  to  show  that  these  anomalies  are  not  errors  of  care- 
lessness. 


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XI. 


CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST  OF   WORKS 
BY  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

1583- 

IsAACi  HoRTiBONi  Notae  ad  Diogenis  Laertii  libros  de  vitis 
dictis  et  decretis  principum  philosophorum.  Morgiis,  venun- 
dantur  in  officina  typographica  Joannis  le  Preux,  Illust.  D. 
Bern.  Typog.  1583,  i2mo. 

[At  this  period  Casaubon  more  than  once  wrote  under  the  name 
of  '  Hortusbonus ' ;  see  his  '  Lectiones  Theocriticae,'  and  the 
dedicatory  verses  prefixed  to  Fr.  Portus'  Commentary  on  Pindar 
(1583).  Through  a  misunderstanding,  however,  of  the  above 
title-page  to  his  Notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius,  his  Jesuit  oppo- 
nents often  call  him  '  Hortibonus.'] 

1584. 

Vetustissimorum  authorum  Georgica,  Bucolica,  et  Gnomica 
poemata  quae  supersunt,  accessit  huic  editioni  Is.  Hortiboni 
Theocriticarum  lectionum  libellus  .  .  .  na^ta  E.  Oviyvam  a<^ Tvh. 
i2mo. 

Casaubon  had  no  hand  in  this  book  beyond  contributing  the 
'lectiones  Theocriticae,'  pp.  361-410. 

1587- 

1.  Strabonis  rerum  geographicarum  Libri  xvii,  Isaacus  Ca- 
saubonus  recensuit,  summoque  studio  et  diligentia,  ope  etiam 
veterum  codicum  emendavit,  ac  commentariis  illustravit  .... 
(s.  1.),  excudebat  Eustathius  Vignon,  Atrebat.  1587,  fol. 

2.  Novi  Testamenti  Libri  omnes  recens  nunc  editi  cum  notis 
Isaaci  Casauboni.  Adjectae  sunt  varias  lectiones  omnes;  cum 
diligenti  similium  locorum  collatione  .  .  (s.l.),  apud  Eustathium 
Vignon,  1587,  i2mo. 

With  ded.  by  I.  Casaubon  to  Canaye  de  Fresne. 


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476  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS 

1588. 
Isaaci  Casauboni  animadversiones  in  Dionysii  Halicarnassei 
antiquitatum  romanarum  libros,  fol. 

Is.  Casaubon  'to  reader'  is  dated  'nonis  augusti,  1588.' 
[These  'Animadversiones '  are  not  a  separate  book,  but  a  con- 
tribution to  Vignon's  edition  of  Aem.   Portus'  translation   of 
Dionysius,  published  s.l.  1588  in  folio. J 

1589. 

1.  noAYAiNOY  STPATHrHMATQN  BiBAOi  OKTSJ.  Polyaeni  stra- 
tagematum  libri  octo.  Is.  Casaubonus  graece  nunc  primum 
edidit,  emendavit,  et  notis  illustravit,  adjecta  est  etiam  Justi 
Vulteii  latina  versio,  cum  indicibus  necessariis,  1589,  apud  Joan. 
Tornaesium,  Typ.  Reg.  Lugdunensem,  i2mo. 

2.  In  Dicsearchi  eclogen  notae  Isaaci  Casauboni.  (7  pages, 
not  numbered,  following  p.  128  of)  Dicsearchi  Geographica 
quaedam  .  .  .  cum  lat.  interpretatione  atque  annot.  Henrici 
Stephani,  excudebat  Henr.  Stephanus,  1589,  i2mo. 

1590. 
Operum  Aristotelis  Stagiritse  philosophorum  omnium  longe 
principis  nova  editio,  graece  et  latine,  graecus  contextus  quam 
emendatissime  prseter  omnes  omnium  editionum  est  editus ; 
adscriptis  ad  cram  libri  et  interpretum  veterum  recentiorumque 
et  aliorum  doctorum  virorum  emendationibus  :  in  quibus  plu- 
rimae  nunc  primum  in  lucem  prodeunt,  ex  bibliotheca  Isaaci 
Casauboni  .  .  .  (oliva  Stephani),  Lugduni,  apud  Guillelmum 
Laemarium,  1590,  fol.,  2  voll. 

1591- 

C.  Plinii  Case.  Sec.  Epist.  Lib.  ix.  ejusdem  et  Trajani  epist. 
amoebaeae.  ejusdem  PL  et  Pacati,  Mamertini,  Nazarii  Panegyrici, 
item  Claudiani  Panegyrici,  praeter  multos  locos  in  hac  posteriori 
editione  emendatos,  adjunctae  sunt  Isaaci  Casauboni  notae  in 
epistolas,  excud.  Henr.  Steph.,  anno  1591. 

With  this  book,  which  is  a  reprint  of  Henri  Estienne's  Plinius 
of  1581,  Casaubon  had  nothing  to  do,  beyond  supplying  a  few 
corrections  and  explanations.  These  are  printed  at  the  end  of 
the  volume,  occupying  15  leaves,  unpaged. 


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BY  ISAAC  CASAOBON.  477 

1592. 
Theophrastus,  Characteres  ethici,  sive  descriptiones  morum 
graece.     Is.  Casaubonus  recensuit,  in  latinum  sermonem  vertit, 
et  libro  commentario  illustravit,  Lugduni,  apud  Franciscum  Le 
Preux,  1592,  8vo. 

1593- 
Diogenes  Laertius,  De  vitis  dogm.  et  apophth.  clarorum  phi- 
losophoriim  libri  x.  Hesychii  ill.  de  iisdem  philos.  et  de  aliis 
scriptoribus  liber.  Pythagor.  philosophorum  fragmenta,  omnia 
grsece  et  lat.  ex  editione  ii.  Is.  Casauboni  notse  ad  lib.  Diogenis 
multo  auctiores  et  emendatiores,  excud.  Henr.  Steph.,  anno 
1593,  (oliva  Stephani),  (other  copies,  1594,)  i2mo. 

1594- 
Apuleii  Apologia,  apud  Commelinum  (Heidelberg)  1594,  4to, 

.     1595- 
Suetonius,  De  xii  Caesaribus  Libri  viii.     Is.  Casaubonus  re- 
censuit  et  animadv.  libros  adjecit  .  .  .  ap.  Ja.  Chouet,  1595,  4to. 

1596. 

Theocritus,  Idyllia  et  epigrammata,  cum  mss.  Palat.  collata 
...  Is.  Casauboni  Theocriticarum  lectionum  libellus,  editio 
altera  uberior  et  melior,  ex  typographeo  Hier.  CommeHni, 
1596,  i2mo. 

1597- 
Athenseus,  Deipnosophistarum  libri  xv.  cura  et  studio  Isaaci 
Casauboni,    bibliothecae    Palatinse,    Vaticanae,    aHarumque   ope 
auctiores  emendatioresque  editi  .  .  .  apud  Hieronymum  Com-  ' 
melinum,  anno  1597,  fol. 

1600. 
Atheneeus,    Isaaci  Casauboni   animadversionum   in  Athenaei 
Deipnosophistas  Libri  xv.  .  .  .  Lugduni,  ap.  Ant.   de   Harsy, 
1600,  fol. 

1601. 
Coppie  d'une  lettre  de  M.  Isaac  Casaubon  au  synode  a  Ger- 
geau,  avec  la  reponse  du  diet  synode,  Gen.  1601,  i2mo. 
See  p.  146  and  note. 


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478  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS 

1603. 

Historiae  Augustse  scriptores  vi.  .  .  .  Is.  Casaubonus  ex 
veter.  libr.  recensuit  idemque  librum  adjecit  emendationum  ac 
notarum,  Paris,  Drouart,  1603,  4to. 

1604. 

Dio  Chrysostomus,  Orationes  Ixxx.  .  .  .  Fed.  Morelli, 
Prof,  regii  opera,  cum  Is.  Casauboni  Diatriba  et  ejusdem 
Morelli  scholiis,  Lutet.  1604,  fol. 

With  this  ed.  Casaubon  had  nothing  to  do  beyond  con- 
tributing the  Diatriba,  which  occupies  pp.  1-106,  separately 
paged,  at  end. 

Burmann,  Sylloge,  i.  359,  'rogatu  Morelli  nostri  Diatribam 
in  D.  C.  edimus  opus  avToux^iiov  nee  magnse  rei.' 

This  Diatriba  is  reprinted  in  Reiske's  Dio  Chrysostomus, 
Leipzig,  1784,  vol.  2,  pp.  443-542. 

1605. 

1.  Persius,  Satirarum  liber.  Is.  Casaubonus  recensuit  et 
commentario  libro  illustravit,  Paris,  Drouart,  1605,  i2mo. 

2.  De  satyrica  Graecorum  poesi  et  Romanorum  satira  libri 
duo,  Paris,  Drouart,  1605,  lamo. 

Notse  in  Gregorii  Thaumaturgi  orationem.  Meric,  Pietas, 
p.  loi,  did  not  know  where  these  notes  were  to  be  found. 
They  occupy  pp.  497-506  of 

Origenis  contra  Celsum  Libri  viii,  a  D.  Hoeschelio,  Aug. 
Vindel.  1605,  4to. 

Of  these  Casaubon  says,  '  Paucas  hodie  impendi  horas  lec- 
tioni  chartarum  quas  ante  triduum  abs  te  accepi ;  .  .  .  . 
quae  percurrenti  mihi  orationes  in  mentem  venerunt  paucis 
accipe  et  boni  consule.' 

1606. 

Gregorius  Nyssen.,  Ad  Eustathiam  Ambrosiam  et  Basilissam 
epistola.  Is.  Casaubonus  nunc  primum  publicavit,  latine  vertit 
et  illustravit  notis  (oliva  Stephani),  Luteti^,  ex  typographia 
Roberti  Stephani,  1606,  i2mo. 


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BY  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  479 

1607. 

1.  De  libertate  ecclesiastica  liber  singularis. 

Printed  at  Paris  in  this  year,  but  suppressed,  by  order  of  the 
government,  before  pubhcation.  First  published  in  Melchior 
Goldast's  Monarchia  S.  Rotnani  imperii,  Hanov.  1612,  vol.  i. 
pp.  674-716. 

It  was  translated  into  English  by  Hilkiah  Bedford,  a  transla- 
tion which  was  inserted  in  Hickes'  'Two  Treatises  of  the 
christian  priesthood,  &c.,  Lond.  1711,'  pp.  cxv-ccxciii. 

2.  Inscriptio  vetus  Grseca,  nuper  ad  urbem  in  via  Appia  effossa : 
dedicationem  fundi  continens  ab  Herode  rege  factam.  Isaacus 
Casaubonus  recensuit  et  notis  illustravit,  fol.  pp.  10,  s.  1.  et  a. 

This  sheet  of  10  pp.  is  undated.  Casaubon  says  the  copy  of 
the  inscription  had  been  sent  '  nuper '  by  Christophe  Dupuy  to 
Jacques  Gillot,  and  he  quotes  Scaliger's  Eusebius  as  published 
'  nuper.'  The  Eusebius  came  out  in  August,  1606.  A  copy  of 
the  '  Inscriptio '  by  Casaubon  had  been  sent  to  Hoeschel  before 
September,  1607.     See  Ep.  568. 

1609. 

Polybius,  Historiarum  libri  qui  supersunt.  Is.  Casaubonus 
ex  antiquis  libris  emendavit  latine  vertit  et  commentariis  illus- 
travit. ^nese  vetustissimi  Tactici  commentarius  de  toleranda 
obsidione.  Is  Casaubonus  primus  vulgavit  latinam  interpreta- 
tionem  et  notas  adjecit  .  .  .   Paris,  Drouart,  1609,  fol. 

Other  copies  have  'typis  Wechelianis  apud  Claudium  Mar- 
nium  et  haeredes  Johannis  Aubrii.'  [It  would  seem  that  a 
certain  number  of  copies  were  taken  by  Wechel,  the  partner 
of  Marni,  and  issued  by  him  with  the  words  Hanov.  (i.e.  Hanau) 
typis  Wechelianis P\  The  book  was  printedin  Paris,  on  french  paper. 

1610. 

1.  Jos.  Justi  Scaligeri  Julii  Csesaris  a  Burden  filii  opuscula 
varia  antehac  non  edita,  Paris,  Beys,  1610,  4to. 

Ed.  by  Casaubon  with  preface,  13  leaves,  unpaged.  [In  La 
France  Protestante  there  is  inserted  in  the  list  of  Casaubon's 
works  Scipionis  Gentilis  et  Isaaci  Casauboni  Elogia  Henrici  IV, 
Paris,  1610,  in  4to.  The  elogium  of  Casaubon  is  only  a  reprint 
of  his  preface  to  the  Scaligeri  Opuscula.] 

2.  Suetonius  .  .  .  Editio  altera,  ab  auctore  emendata  et  locis 
quamplurimis  aucta .  .  .  Paris,  apud  Hadria'num  Beys,  1610,  fol. 


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480  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS 

1611. 
Is.  Casauboni  ad  Frontonem  Ducaeum  S.  J.  Theologum  epis- 
tola,  Londini,  Norton,  161 1,  4to. 

1612. 

1.  Is.  Casauboni  ad  epistolam  illustr.  et  reverendiss.  Cardi- 
nalis  Perronii  responsio,  Londini,  Norton,  1612,  4to. 

The  date  at  the  end  of  this  '  Reply '  is  5  eid.  novemb.  1612. 
But,  as  observed  by  Bliss,  Andrewes'  Works,  11.  6,  note,  this 
must  be  an  error  for  161 1.  See  Ephem.  p.  897,  898.  The  king 
had  the  ms.  and  kept  it  for  some  months ;  see  ep.  760.  It  was 
finally  put  into  the  printer's  hands  in  April,  1612.  See  Ephem. 
p.  924.  [In  De  Thou's  copy,  now  in  the  possession  of 
Mr.  Christie,  the  date  at  the  end  of  the  reply  is  accurately 
given,  V  Eidus  Novembr.  cioiocxi.  The  error  must  have  been 
discovered  and  corrected  during  the  printing.] 

2.  Athenseus. 

In  this  year  the  text  and  latin  version  of  Athenseus  were 
reprinted  at  Lyon ;  Lugduni,  apud  viduam  Antonii  de  Harsy, 
ad  insigne  scuti  Coloniensis,  1612,  fol. 

In  this  pref  the  '  typographus '  tells  the  reader  that  Isaac 
Casaubon  '  nobis  notarum  loco  lectiones  quasdam  varias  et  con- 
jecturas  suppeditavit.' 

I  have  not  examined  this  edition.  But  I  suspect  that  Casau- 
bon had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  that  the  '  various  readings ' 
and  'conjectures'  were  taken  by  Madame  de  Harsy's  editor 
from  the  volume  of  'Animadversiones'  published  by  Casaubon 
in  1600. 

[Epistola  ad  M.  Lingelshemium  de  quodam  libello  Scioppii, 
1612,  Paris,  4to.  Reprinted  in  Satirae  Duse  Hercules  Tuam 
Fidem  sive  Munsterus  Hypobolimseus  et  Virgula  Divina. 
Lugd.  Bat.  1617,  i2mo.] 

1614. 

De  rebus  sacris  et  ecclesiasticis  exercitationes  xvi  ad  Baronii 
annales,  Londini,  1614,  fol. 

1615. 
A  letter  of  M'.  Casaubon,  with  a  memorial  of  M"9.  Elizabeth 
Martin,  late  deceased.  .  .  .  8vo.,  London,  printed  by  Nicholas 
Okes,  for  George  Norton,  1615. 


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BY  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  481 

The  title  page  is  separate,  but  the  letter  forms  an  appendix 
to  '  The  King's  Way  to  Heaven,'  by  James  Martin,  Master  of 
Arts,  1615,  8vo, 

1617. 

Isaaci  Casauboni  ad  Polybii  historiarum  librum  primum  com- 
mentarii,  ad  Jacobum  I,  Magnae  Britanniae  regem  serenissimum. 
(oliva  Stephani),  Parisiis,  apud  Antonium  Stephanum,  typogra- 
phum  regium,  161 7,  8vo. 

1618. 

[Notes  on  the  Oath  of  Hippocrates,  printed  by  Franfois 
Ranchin  in  Hippocratis  Jusjurandum  Greece  et  Latine,  Monspel. 
1618.     See  p.  loi  note]. 

1621. 

Is.  Casauboni  Animadversionum  in  Athensei  deipnosophistas 
libri  XV.  .  .  .  secunda  editio  postrema  authoris  cura  diligenter 
recognita,  et  ubique  doctissimis  additionibus  aucta  .  .  .  Lug- 
duni,  ap.  viduam  Ant.  de  Harsy  et  Petrum  Ravaud,  in  vico 
Mercuriali,  ad  insigne  S.  Petri,  1621,  fol. 

The  '  dihgenter  recognita '  of  this  title-page  is  certainly  frau- 
dulent. As  to  the  'additions,'  Meric  or  Florence  Casaubon 
may  have  communicated  some  of  Isaac's  'secundae  curse,'  but  I 
have  not  collated  the  edition  with  a  view  to  ascertain  this. 

1637. 

Isaaci  Casauboni  Epistolae  quotquot  reperiri  potuerunt  nunc 
primum  junctim  editse,  Hagse  Comitis,  ex  officina  Theodori 
Maire,  1637,  4to. 

1656. 

Isaaci  Casauboni  Epistolae :    editio  secunda  Ixxxii  epistolis 

auctior   et  juxta   seriem   temporum   digesta,   curante  Johanne 

■  Georgio  Graevio.      Magdeburgi  et  Helmstadi,  sumptibus  Chris- 

tiani   Gerlachi   et    Simonis    Beckensteini,    Brunsvigae,    excudit 

Andreas  Dunckerus,  1656,  4to. 

1684. 
M.  Tullii  Ciceronis  Epistolarum  Libri  xvi  ad  T.  Pomponium 
Atticum  ex  recensione  Joannis  Georgii  Graevii  cum  ejusdem 
animadversionibus,    et    notis    integris    Petri    Victorii,    Paulli 

I  i 


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482  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS 

Manutii,  Leonardi  Malhespinae,  D.  Lambini,  Fulvii  Ursini, 
Sim.  Bosii,  Fr.  Junii,  Aus.  Popmse,  nee  non  selectis  Sebast. 
Corradi,  Is.  Casauboni,  Joan.  Fred.  Gronovii  et  aliorum. 
Amstelodami,  sumptibus  Blaviorum,  et  Henrici  Wetstenii, 
1684,  2  vols.  8vo. 

Casaubon's  notes  extend  over  the  first  seventeen  epistles  of 
Book  i.  only.  The  papers  from  which  they  were  printed  were 
supplied  to  James  Gronovius  by  Meric  shortly  before  his 
death  in  1671.  They  represented  one  of  Isaac's  courses  of 
lectures  at  Geneva.     See  Gas.  ep.  986. 

From  these  papers  Graevius  selected  '  quae  caeterorum  inter- 
pretum  studium  et  sollertiam  fugerant.' 

1709. 

Isaaci  Casauboni  Epistolae  insertis  ad  easdem  responsionibus 
....  accedunt  huic  tertiae  editioni,  praeter  trecentas  ineditas 
epistolas,  Isaaci  Casauboni  vita;  ejusdem  dedicationes,  prasfa- 
tiones,  prolegomena,  poemata,  fragmentum  de  libertate  eccle- 
siastica,  item  Merici  Casauboni  I.  F.  epistolae,  dedicationes, 
praefationes,  prolegomena,  et  tractatus  quidam  rariores,  curante 
Theodoro  Janson  ab  Almeloveen.  Roterodami,  t3rpis  Casparis 
Fritsch  et  Michaelis  Bohm,  1709,  fol. 

1710. 

Casauboniana,  sive  Isaaci  Casauboni  varia  de  scriptoribus 
librisque  judicia  ...  ex  varii  (s«'c)  Casauboni  mss.  in  bibliotheca 
bodleiana  reconditis  nunc  primum  erutas  a  Jo.  Christophoro 
Wolfio,  prof.  publ.  philosoph.  extraordinario  in  academ.  Witte- 
berg.  .  .  .  Hamburgi,  sumptibus  Christiani  Libezeit,  typis 
Philippi  Ludovici  Stromeri,  anno  1710,  i2mo. 

1710. 

In  Kilster's  Aristophanes,  published  in  this  year  at  Amster- 
dam, 2  vols,  fol.,  were  printed  'Isaaci  Casauboni  Notae  in 
Equites.'  They  are  in  tom.  2.  pp.  76-103.  Kuster  says  of 
them,  praef.  ad  lectorem,  'Notae  Casauboni  licet  non  aeque 
elaboratae  sint  ac  alia,  quae  habemus,  eruditissimi  illius  viri 
opera,  pr^lectiones  enim  potius  fuisse  videntur,  in  tironum 
usum  conscriptae,  plurima  tamen  in  illis  occurrunt  ex  interior- 
ibus  Uteris  deprompta,  subtiliterque  et  ingeniose  excogitata, 
neque  auctoris  sui  nomine  indigna.' 


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SV  ISAAC  CASAUBON.  483 

The  MS.  from  which  Kiister  had  them  copied  is  now  in  the 
Bibl.  nat.  These  notes  on  the  '  Equites '  are  not  the  same 
as  the  'in  Aristophanem  observata,'  contained  in  Advers.  torn. 
23,  in  the  Bodleian,  which  are  very  sHght  memoranda  jotted 
down  when  reading  through  the  whole  of  Aristophanes,  at 
Strassburg,  in  January,  1593. 

1827. 

Epistolae  virorum  doctorum  ineditse  quas  e  codice  autographo 
bibliothecae  academicae  Lignicensis  transscripsit  Dr.  Fridericus 
Schultze  academise  equestris  professor  et  bibliothecae  praefectus, 
Lignitii,  1827,  4to. 

Contains  16  letters  of  Is.  Casaubon  to  Abraham  de  Bibran. 

1850. 

Ephemerides  Isaaci  Casauboni  cum  praefatione  et  notis, 
edente  loanne  Russell  S.T.P.  Canonico  Cantuariensi,  scholse 
Carthusianae  olim  Archididascalo.  Oxonii  e  typographeo  Aca- 
demico  1850.     2  vols.  8vo. 


PSEUDEPIGRAPHA. 

1.  Is.  Casauboni  Corona  Regia,  id  est  Panegyrici  cujusdamvere 
aurei,  quern  Jacobo  i  magnae  Britanniae  etc.  regi  fidei  defensori 
delinearat,  fragmenta  ab  Euphormione  inter  schedas  toC  /mKapiTov 
inventa,  collecta,  et  in  lucem  edita.  1615  pro  officina  regia 
Jo.  Bill,  Londini,  i2mo.  pp.  128. 

A  mock  panegyric  of  James  i,  fathered  upon  Casaubon  by  its 
author,  Scioppius,  to  give  effect  to  the  satire.  A  reward  was 
offered  for  the  discovery  of  the  author,  which  was  claimed,  as 
late  as  1639,  by  Jean  de  Perriet,  a  Brussels  bookseller.  See 
Calendar  of  Clar.  State  Papers,  i.  195. 

2.  Misoponeri  Satyricon,  cum  notis  aliquot  ad  obscuriora 
prosae  loca  et  graecorum  interpretatione.  Lugduni  Batavorum, 
apud  Sebastianum  Wolzium,  1617,  lamo.  pp.  143. 

[Owing  doubtless  to  the  mention  of  Casaubon  in  the  intro- 
ductory verses,]  this  is  attributed  by  Placcius  to  Isaac  Casaubon, 
and  Placcius  was  copied  by  Qudrard.  The  error  has  not  been 
corrected  in  the  new  edition  of  Qu^rard  by  M.  Gustave 
Brunei. 

I  i  2 

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484  CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  WORKS 

3.  The  originall  of  idolatries :  or  The  birth  of  heresies  :  a 
true,  sincere,  and  exact  description  of  all  such  sacred  signes, 
sacrifices,  and  sacraments  as  have  been  instituted  and  ordained 
of  God  since  Adam ;  with  the  true  source  and  lively  anatomy  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  masse.  First  faithfully  gathered  out  of 
sundry  greeke  and  latine  authors,  as  also  out  of  divers  learned 
fathers ;  by  that  famous  and  learned  ISAAC  CASAUBON, 
and  by  him  published  in  French,  for  the  good  of  God's  church  : 
and  now  translated  into  English  for  the  benefit  of  this  monarchy ; 
by  Abraham  Darcie.  London,  printed  by  authoritie  for  Nathaniel 
Butter,  anno  dom.  1624,  4to.  pp.  108. 

[The  imposture  was  immediately  exposed  by  Meric  Casaubon 
in  a  tract,  'The  vindication  or  defence  of  Isaac  Casaubon  against 
those  impostors  that  lately  published  an  impious  and  unlearned 
Pamphlet,  intituled  The  Originall  of  Idolatries  etc.  under  his 
name'  (Lend.  1624).  Accordingly  in  the  second  edition  (1630) 
of  Darcie's  book  the  title  is  thus  amended :  '  The  originall  of 
Popish  Idolatrie,  or  the  birth  of  heresies.  Published  under  the 
name  of  Causabon  [Casaubon],  and  called-in  the  same  yeare, 
upon  misinformation.  But  now  upon  better  consideration  re- 
printed with  allowance.'  (etc.)] 

4.  Phrynicus,  Epitome  dictionum  atticarum  libri  iii  .  .  .  Aug. 
Vindel.  typis  Michaelis  Mangeri,  1601,  4to. 

At  the  end  of  the  volume,  in  some  copies,  and  following 
'  Index  auctorum,'  are  '  ad  Phrynicum  et  ejus  interpretem  viri 
illustris  notse,  a  Davide  Hoeschelio  Augustano  editse  .  .  .  Aug. 
Vindel.  4to. 

Of  these  brief  notes,  Menage,  Antibaillet  i.  161,  says,  'I  have 
heard  M.  Mentel  say  that  Casaubon  was  the  author.'  No  one, 
however,  can  doubt  that  they  are  by  Scaliger,  and,  as  Scaliger's, 
they  were  reprinted  by  de  Pauw,  and  by  Lobeck,  the  latter 
adding,  '  nam  Scaligeri  quidem  nullam  unam  literam  perire  fas 
duco.'     See  Bernays,  'J.  J.  Scaliger,'  p.  183. 

[Za  France  Protestante,  2nd  edition,  vol.  iii.  col.  821,  attributes 
to  Casaubon  the  following  tract :  Bona  fides  Sibrandi  Luhberti 
demonstrata  ex  libro  quern  inscripsit  Responsio  ad  pietatem 
H.  Grotii,  Lugd.  Batav.,  1614,  in  410.  This  is  an  error. 
The  tract  in  question  was  probably  written  by  Grotius  himself ; 
Casaubon  certainly  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  though  there  is 
prefixed  to  it  an  extract  from  a  letter  of  Casaubon  to  Grotius 
dated  Londini,  Idibus  Nov.  MDCXIII.] 

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XII. 

[ON   THE  DESCENDANTS  OF 
ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

Florence  Casaubon  survived  her  husband  twenty-one  years, 
and  was  buried  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster  Abbey,  March  ii, 
1635  (ante,  p.  420). 

Besides  a  daughter  by  his  first  wife,  who  seems  to  have  died 
when  very  young,  Casaubon  had,  by  his  second  wife  Florence, 
seventeen '  children  and  no  more,  according  to  his  own  state- 
ment quoted  by  M.  Bordier  in  La  France  Protestante  (2nd 
edition,  vol.  iii.  col.  823) : 

1.  A  son  stillborn,  28  July,  1588. 

2.  Philippa,  born  23  July,  1589,  died  24  February,  1608. 

3.  John,  born  12  October,  1590  (erroneously  stated  in  La 
France  Protestante  to  have  been  killed  accidentally  by  a  musket- 
shot  22  February,  1594.  In  fact  he  survived  his  father,  and 
entered  the  order  of  the  capuchins  about  1619-20.    Ante,  p.  424). 

4.  Abigail,  born  16  August,  1592,  died  July  10,  1596. 

5.  Esther  Christian,  born  24  December,  1593,  died  14  Sep- 
tember, 1595. 

6.  Elizabeth,  born  20  February,  1595,  died  27  August,  1597. 

7.  Pauline,  born  and  died  9  March,  1596. 

8.  Gentille  or  Joantilla,  born  12  April,  1597,  married  to  John 
Granvelle,  Seigneur  du  Pin,  advocate  of  the  parliament  of  Paris . 

9.  Jehanne,  born  8  May,  1598. 

10.  Meric,  born  14  August,  1599. 

11.  Anne,  born  2  November,  1600. 

12.  Paul,  born  28  December,  1601. 

13.  A  son  stillborn,  8  June,  1604. 

14.  Esther,  born  16  January,  1606,  died  when  a  week  old. 

15.  A  son  died  at  his  birth,  18  January,  1607. 

16.  Marie,  born  4  October,  1608. 

17.  James,  born  3  November,  1612. 

'■  [Mr.  Pattison  however  states  the  number  as  eighteen  :  ante,  p.  29.] 


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486     ON  THE  DESCENDANTS  OF  ISAAC  CASAUBON. 

John  and  Paul  became  Roman  Catholics,  and  little  more  is 
known  of  the  life  of  either  than  is  mentioned  by  Mr.  Pattison. 
Meric,  whose  full  name  was  Florence  Etienne  Meric,  is  the  well- 
known  scholar.  His  life  and  a  list  of  his  works  will  be  found  in 
the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  zx\A  in  La  France  Protes- 
tante.  The  list  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  is  how- 
ever incomplete,  and  the  two  articles  must  be  referred  to,  to 
supplement  each  other.  He  married  as  his  first  wife  Frances 
Harrison,  and  this  lady  was  the  mother  of  most  if  not  all  his 
children.     (Notes  and  Queries,  7th  S.  x.  518.) 

According  to  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  he  mar- 
ried a  second  wife  in  1651,  and  died  in  1671.  The  name  of 
only  one  of  his  children  has  come  down  to  us,  John,  a  surgeon  at 
Canterbury,  who  was  buried  in  Canterbury  Cathedral,  February 
19,  1692.  John  had  issue  by  his  wife  Margaret,  and  the  christen- 
ing of  their  son  Meric  on  July  34,  1677,  and  that  of  their 
daughter  Sarah  on  August  31,  1679,  are  registered  in  the  books 
of  St.  Mary  Magdalene,  Canterbury.  Meric  appears  to  have 
died  early,  as  a  child  bearing  that  Christian  name  and  described 
as  the  son  of  Mr.  John  Casaubon,  was  buried  in  Canterbury 
Cathedral,  February  4,  1680.  Among  the  petitions  to  the  Lords 
of  the  Treasury  is  one  of  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  Stephen  Casau- 
bon. He  commanded  a  regiment  of  horse  in  Ireland,  and,  being 
wounded  in  battle,  was  granted  a  pension  in  1692-3.  Probably 
he  was  the  husband  of  the  Mrs.  Casaubon,  who,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle  dated  August  19,  1732,  alludes  to  being  a 
kinswoman  of  his  Grace.  A  William  Casaubon,  probably  her 
son,  married  in  Dublin,  August  i,  1743,  Miss  Bell  Rogerson, 
daughter  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice.  Paul  Casaubon  published 
at  Montpellier  in  1863  an  essay  entitled  Etude  Clinique  sur 
r Ulcere  cance'reux.  ("A.  E.  R."  in  Notes  and  Queries,  7th  S. 
xi.  97.) 

"  H.  W."  in  Notes  and  Queries,  7th  S.  x.  518,  mentions  an 
Isaac  Casaubon  as  living  in  1729.] 


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INDEX. 


A. 

Abate,  Nicolo  del',  445, 

Abbot,  archbishop  George,  277  sqq., 
290,  295,  304,  351,  357,  369,  373, 
375,  378,  405,  408. 

Abbot,  bishop  Robert,  25,  295,  314,  357 
sqq.,  364  sq.,  390. 

Abernethey,  Adam,  252. 

Academie  fran9aise,  rise  of,  u6 ;  a 
revival  of  an  earlier  assemblage,  116 
sq. 

Acquapendente,  Fabricius  ab,  77. 

^lianus  Tacticus,  432. 

^sop,  the  Aldine,  361. 

Agen,  161. 

Aldrovandi,  Ulysse,  443. 

Aldus,  112. 

Algiers,  445. 

Alkermes,  manufacture  of,  at  Moiit- 
pellier,  97. 

Almeloveen,  T.  J.  van, edition  of  Casau- 
bon's  letters,  i  sqq.,  8g,  94,  190,  196, 
320,  339,  399,  412,  426,  482. 

Altdorf,  66,  265,  288. 

Alva,  duke  of,  311. 

Ambrose,  S.,  210. 

Amiens,  162. 

Amphitheatrum  Honoris,  the,  217  sq., 
241,  366,  389,  397  sq. 

Amsterdam,  20,  470. 

Amyot's  Plutarch,  281. 

Amyraut,  Moyse,  94. 

'  Ana,'  425  sq. 

Andreae,  J.  Valentin,  46. 

Andrewes,  bp.  Lancelot,  215,  z'-fisq., 
Q.?&sqq. ;  at  Cambridge,  291 ;  charac- 
terised, 292-294  ;  296,  298,  307  sq. ; 
Toriura  Torti,  ^issqq.,  333«?.,  343, 
352;  takes  CasSubon  to  Downhara, 

347  «??•  ;  367.  373.  381,  387.  394  ; 

administers    the    Eucharist    to    the 

dying  Casaubon,  417  ;  418,  420,  424, 

444,  469. 
'  Antiquity,'   anglo  -  catholic  view    of, 

336. 
Antvyerp,  218,  366,  393,  396  sqq. 
Apicius,  105. 
Apollonius,  458. 
Appianus,  458. 


Arabic,  Casaubon's  knowledge  of,  43a. 

Arbault,  dr.,  243,  468. 

Aristotle,  16,  47,  58,  61,  421,  464  sq. 
See  Casaubon,  Isaac. 

Armada,  the  Spanish,  21,  25,  311. 

Arminianism,  322,  351,  357. 

Arminius,  20,  224. 

Arnalds,  the  (of  Paris),  208. 

Arnauld,  Antoine,  158,  162. 

Arnold,  dr.  Thomas,  464. 

Arrianus,  185. 

Artemidorus,  206. 

Athens,  334,  450. 

Aubenas,  161. 

Aubigne,  T.  A.  d',  137,  245. 

Aubus,  Charles  d',  251. 

Auch,  161. 

Augsburg,  37,  183,  193,  218,  380,  399  ; 
books  printed  at,  478,  484 ;  confes- 
sion of,  13. 

Augustine,  S.,  34,  224,  233,  346,  442. 

Aulus  Gellius,  451. 

Aurea  carvnina,  the,  170. 

Auriol,  Abraham,  301,  303. 

Avicenna,  238. 

Aylmer,  bishop  John,  19. 


B. 


Bacon,  Francis,  93,  265,  285,  288  sq.  ; 

draft    letter   to   Casaubon,   297317.; 

316,  321,  372,  457. 
Baden,  prince  of,  304,  306. 
Bale,    10,  21,  42,  99,    107,   112,   283, 

432- 

Bancroft,  archbishop  Richard,  invites 
Casaubon  to  England,  271  sqq.  276, 
282 ;  twice  visited  by  Casaubon,  277 
sq. ;  dies,  277  ;  387. 

Banks  and  his  horse  Morocco,  445. 

Bar,  duchesse  de,  187  sq.,  210. 

Barclay,  John,  317,  381,  416. 

Barlow,  bishop  William,  302. 

Barnet,  Jacob  (rabbinical  scholar), 
368 ;  a  convert,  368  sq. ;  flees  from 
Oxford  on  the  eve  of  baptism,  370  ; 
finally  banished  the  University  pre- 
cincts, 370  ;  a  later  glimpse  of  him, 
371;  373- 


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488 


INDEX. 


Baronius,  C,  cardinal,  167,  196,  216, 
301,  306,  309,  313  sqq.  ;  sketch  of 
his  career,  323  sq. ;  the  Annates,  317- 
319,  Z^zsqq.  ;  346,  349,  374  s?. 

Barthius,  Gaspar,  408,  428. 

Bartholists,  the,  85. 

Bartholomew,  the  S.,  5,  15,  21,  116, 
157,  175.  211,  214,  245,  311,  390. 

Barwick,  dr.  John,  378. 

Basil,  S.,  96,  104,  363. 

Batteley,  archdeacon  John,  89. 

Baudius,  Dominicus,  257,  262,  406, 
412. 

Bayle,  Peter,  19B. 

Beaulieu,  —  ,  270  sq. 

Becher,  William,  195,  204,  299. 

Beckenstein,  Simon,  481. 

Bedford,  Hilkiah,  479. 

Bedwell,  William,  293,  305. 

Bellarmine,  cardinal,  226,  294,  308, 
312,  317,  324,  332,  347,  399. 

Bellebranche,  abbS  de,  181. 

Bellievre,  chancellor,  139,  141,  154. 

Beloe,  W.,  320. 

Benet,  dr.  John,  469. 

Bentley,    dr.    Richard,    34,    66,   376, 

435- 
Bernays,  Jacob,  139,  261,  484. 
Bernhardy  on  Casaubon  and  Scaliger, 

450- 
Berne,  11  sq.,  18. 
Berlins,  Peter,  257. 
Bertram,  Bonaventure,  21. 
Bessarion,  cardinal,  35. 
Beys,  Hadrian,  479. 
Beza,  Theodore,  11-13,  23,  46  sq.,  49, 

51  sq.  ;  characterised,    56  sq. ;  73,  84 

sq.,  137,  223,  248,  265. 
Beziers,  161. 
Bible,  King  James's  translation,   296, 

366. 
Bibran,  A.  de,  483. 
Bill,  John,  344,  361,  385,  483. 
Bilson,  bishop  Thomas,  295. 
Biondi,  J.  F.,  37. 
Birch,  dr.  Thomas,  297,  300. 
Biron's  conspiracy,  172. 
Blackburn,  Francis,  65. 
Bliss,  dr.  Philip,  480. 
Blois,  179. 

Blondel  (syndic  of  Geneva),  230. 
Blondel,  David   (criticises   Baronius), 

339- 
Bochari,  335. 
Bochart,  Samuel,  256. 
Bodin's  Theatrum,  443. 
Boeckh,  A.,  436. 
Boethius,  Hector,  363. 
Bongars,  Jacques,  30,  37,  48,  50,  54  ; 

French    envoy   at   Strassburg,   60 ; 

edition  of  Justin,  ib.;  love  of  learn- 


ing, 61  ;  fate  of  his  books  and  MSS., 

*. ;  70.  107,  185,  187,  i93>  249.  340. 

448. 
Bonivard,  — ,  18,  39. 
Book-trade,  the,   temp.  Casaubon,  on 

the  Continent,   385^.;    in  England, 

361  sq. 
Bordeaux,  3,  7,  161,  222,  407. 
Bordier,  H.,  quoted,  3,  4,  7,  485. 
Borrell  (pastor),  251. 
Bosius,  S.,  482. 

Bouillon,  due  de,  252,  271,  305. 
Bourbon,  cardinal,  180. 
Bourdeaux  (Dauphine),  3,  20,  73,  122, 

227,  232. 
Bourges,  162. 
Bourlamarqui,  P.,  468. 
Boyle,  Charles,  376. 
Bridges,  bishop  John,  365. 
'  Brief  in  aid  of  Geneva,  20. 
Brisson,  Barnabas,  180. 
'  Britain,'  derivation  of,  299. 
Broughton,  Hugh,  318. 
Browne,  Edward,  84. 
Brunet,  Gustave,  483. 
Bruno,  Giordano,  383, 
Bucer,  Martin,  283. 
Buchanan,  George,  281,  285. 
Buckeridge,  bishop  John,  290. 
Budseus,  Gul.,  158,  453. 
Bulenger,  J.  C,  105,  138,  376,  390. 
Bulletin  de  la  Societe  de  VHistoire  Proles- 

tanie  de  la  France,  72,  251. 
BuUinger,  H.,  11,  19. 
Burigny,  L.  de,  146. 
Burmann,  P.,  Sylloge  Epistolarum,  2, 

74.  256,  432,  458  sq.,  462,  478,  &c. 
Burnet,  bishop  Gilbert,  421,  442. 
Burney  MSS.  (British  Museuml,  1,  32, 

36  sq.,  58,  81,  130,  135,  434,  &c. 
Bury  S.  Edmunds,  350. 
Bussi-Leclerc,  115. 
Butler,  bishop  Joseph,  65,  338. 
Butter,  Nathaniel,  484. 
Buwinkhausen,  von,  249  sq. 

C. 

Caesar's  Commentayies,  197,  202,  281. 

Calais,  274  sq. 

Calas,  Jean,  112. 

Galas,  Jean  (of  Nimes),  145. 

Calignon  (chancellor  of  Navarre),  210, 
234,  237,  245. 

Calixtus,  Georg,  290,  305  sq,,  448. 

Calvin,  John,  secret  of  his  power,  10  ; 
plan  for  the  academy  of  Geneva, 
11;  organises  it,  12;  number  at- 
tending his  lectures,  15  ;  never  takes 
the  title  of  professor,  16 ;  on  pro- 
fessors'salaries,  17;  20,  72;  Lives  of 


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INDEX. 


489 


him  quoted,  72  ;  Episiols!,  los ;  137  ; 
Institutes,  189,  198,  224 ;  223  sq., 
402,  446. 

Calvinism  and  Lutheranism,  their 
effects,  65  ; — and  Arminianism,  222. 

CalUgraphs,  the,  35. 

Cambridge,  112,  159,  283,  291,  296; 
visit  of  Casautjon  to,  347,  352 ;  418, 
443,  472.  Clare  Hall,  348,  351; 
Corpus  Christi  College,  353  ;  Peter- 
house,  347  sq. ;  Trinity  College,  348. 

Camden,  William,  195,  204,  288,  294  ; 
relations  with  Casaubon,  298  sq.  ; 
355,  378,  472- 

Camerarius,  Joachim,  30,  52,  349,  428. 

Cameron,  John,  407. 

Campanella,  T.,  379. 

Canter,  Lambert,  36. 

—  Theodore,  74,  407. 
Canterbury,   89,   262,  272  sj.,  276  sy., 

282,  320,  387,  425, 470  sq.,  486. 
Canute,  king,  377. 
Capell,  Mrs.,  230. 

Cappel,  A.,  74, 303,  305,  329,  401,  469. 
Capperonier,  Claude,  155. 
Carcassonne,  87. 
Carew,  sir  George,  271  sq.,  297. 
Carew,  Lady,  228,  378,  385. 
Carier,  Benjamin,  276  sq.,  387,  408. 
Carleton,  sir  Dudley,  376,   380,  382, 

3S7,  432. 
Carr,  Robert,  earl  of  Somerset,  284. 
Carteret,  John  lord,  59. 
Casaubon,  family  of,  4. 
Casaubon,  Abigail  (d.  of  Isaac),  485. 

—  Anna  (sister  of  Isaac),  7  ;  marries 
(i)  Jean  Rigoti,  (2)  Pierre  Perillau, 
ib. ;  209,  230,  232,  388. 

—  Anne  (d.  of  Isaac),  276,  485. 

—  Arnold  (father  of  Isaac),  3  ;  at  the 
college  of  Guienne,  Bordeaux,  4 ; 
flees  from  Gascony  to  Geneva,  ib. ; 
habitant  and  bourgeois  of  Geneva, 
ib. ;  pastor  at  Crfist,  ib. ;  recom- 
mends Strabo  to  his  son,  4,  49  ; 
absent  from  Crest  for  three  years, 
5  ;  his  son's  gratitude  for  his  train- 
ing, 6  ;  death  and  burial,  25  ;  fiction 
that  he  was  hanged,  26,  365  sq.,  393 
sqq. ;  on  his  son's  Observations  on 
Diogenes  Laertius,  49. 

—  Bertrand  de  VignoUes,  sieur  de,  4. 

—  Elisabeth  (d.  of  Isaac),  dies,  lotsq., 

485- 

—  Esther  (d.  of  Isaac),  485. 

—  Esther  Christian  (d.  of  Isaac"!,  485. 

—  Florence,  nee  Estienne  (wife  of 
Isaac),  27;  her  numerous  children, 
29 ;  her  one  entry  in  the  Epheme- 
rides,  30,  88  ;  thrift,  30 ;  law-suit 
for  recovery  of  her  marriage  portion, 


68 ;  forgot  Latin,  88 ;  89,  93,  122, 
147,  150,  205,  208-210,  214  sq.,  228, 
230-232 ;  ill-health,  243  sq. ;  268, 
275,  278,  296,  300  s?.,  346,354,  378, 
384  sqq.,  405  ;  dependence  of  Ca- 
saubon on  her,  408-410 ;  her  ab- 
sences in  France,  409-411 ;  417  ; 
her  husband's  sole  executrix,  419; 
returns  after  his  death  to  France, 
ib. ;  liberally  treated  by  James  I, 
417,  419  sq.  ;  dies  in  London,  and 
is  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
420,  485;  467  sqq.,  481. 
—  Gentille  (d.  of  Isaac),  276,  485. 

Casaubon,  Isaac,  materials  for  bio- 
graphy, I  sq. ;  born,  3 ;  his  parent- 
age, ib. ;  childhood  in  Dauphind,  4  ; 
his  precocity,  5  ;  irregular  training, 
5  sj. ;  a  student  at  Geneva,  6 ;  learns 
Greek  under  Fr.  Portus,  8 ;  suc- 
ceeds him  as  professor  of  Greek,  9  ; 
marries  (i)  Marie  Prolyot,  20,  73 ; 
she  dies,  20,  73  sq.,  485  ;  their 
daughter  Jeanne,  20,  73,  485 ;  his 
lectures  suspended,  21  sq. ;  visits 
Frankfort,  22,  56 ;  in  great  necessity, 
but    receives     presents     from     the 

'  council,  24 ;  more  hopeful,  25  ;  his 
account  of  his  father's  death,  25 ; 
reception  of  the  news,  26 ;  on  the 
fiction  that  his  father  was  hanged, 
26,  365  sq.,  393  sqq.  ;  marries  (2) 
Florence  Estienne,  26  sq. ;  difBcul- 
ties  with  his  father-in-law,  28 ;  deep 
attachment  to  his  wife,  28-30,  74 ; 
sense  of  the  preciousness  of  time, 
28,  91  sqq. ;  debarred  H.  Estienne's 
library,  30-32,  69,  120 ;  contributes 
to  his  editions,  32 ;  affection  for 
him,  ib. ;  receives  a  bonus  from  the 
council,  33 ;  his  library  in  1597,  34  ; 
his  style  of  work,  34  sqq. ;  buys 
transcripts  of  Greek  MSS.,  35  sq., 
and  rare  printed  books,  36  ;  funds, 
how  obtained,  37  sq. ;  '  loans '  of 
books,  ib. ;  books,  Casaubon 's  'tools,' 
38 ;  little  aid  from  libraries,  39  sq. ; 
acquaintance  with  Henry  Wotton, 
40-42  ;  want  of  leisure,  43  ;  subjects 
and  character  of  his  lectures,  43 
sqq. ;  preference  of  works  of  learn- 
ing to  literature,  47  ;  literary  ardour 
checked  by  religious  sentiment,  49 ; 
oscillates  between  theology  and 
scholarship,49-5i;  affected  by  the  de- 
votional atmosphere  of  Geneva,  51 ; 
in  spite  of  unfavourable  circumstan- 
ces,develops  the  true  idea  of  classical 
learning,  52  sq. ;  ars  longa,  vita 
brevis,   53-55;    growing   reputation 


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INDEX. 


Casaubon,  Isaac  {cont^, 

and  acquaintance,  55  sqq.  ;  friend- 
ship with  Beza,  56  sq.,  with  Lect, 
57  sq.,  with  Pacius,  58 ;  corresponds 
with  de  Thou,  59,  with  Bongars, 
59  sqq.,  with  Canaye  de  Fresne,  61, 
with  Pierre  Pithou,  62,  with  Leun- 
clavius,  ib.,  with  Scaliger,  62-65  ! 
Scaliger  tries  to  get  him  an  invita- 
to  Leyden,  65  ;  not  invited  to  Hei- 
delberg till  1608,  66  sq. ;  a  French- 
man, 67  ;  anxious  to  leave  Geneva, 
ib. ;  later  grievance  against  Geneva, 
68,  230-232  ;  reasons  for  wishing 
to  leave  in  1596,  69  sq. ;  salary  at 
Geneva,  69,  75  ;  accepts  an  invita- 
tion to  Montpellier,  70,  80  ;  his  two 
visits  to  Germany,  74  sq. ;  leaves 
Geneva,  82  sq. 

Montpellier.  Casaubon's  stipend  at, 
62 ;  deed  of  appointment  as  pro- 
fessor, 131  sq.  ;  his  entry,  83 ; 
friendly  with  the  bishop,  85  ;  atti- 
tude towards  Calvinism,  86  sq. ;  his 
friends,  87  ;  his  Ephemerides,  87-93; 
time  wasted  by  society  at  Mont- 
pellier, 93 ;  did  not  bathe  his  eyes 
with  vinegar,  94 ;  his  wife,  ib. ; 
attacks  of  illness,  95 ;  hours  of 
study,  ib. ;  arrangements  for  the 
week,  96 ;  sermons,  ib. ;  Sunday  at, 
97 ;  vacation  visits,  97  ;  rector  of 
the  faculty  of  arts,  98,  105,  121 ; 
public  interest  in  his  lectures,  99  ; 
their  subjects  and  character,  99  sqq.', 
their  ethical  cast,  100 ;  intermixture 
of  Greek  and  Latin,  101-103 ;  secret 
of  his  success,  103  ;  want  of  leisure, 
104  sq.  ;  his  day's  reading,  104  sq. ; 
waning  popularity,  105  ;  disappoint- 
ments and  pecuniary  difficulties, 
105-107  ;  salary  raised,  107  ;  death 
of  his  daughter  Elisabeth,  106  sq. ; 
hints  of  a  call  to  Paris,  107 ;  catho- 
lic ascendency  in  the  university, 
107  sq. ;  Casaubon's  Athenaeus,  text, 
108,  Observations,  log;  time  occu- 
pied thereby,  109;  finds  the  work 
irksome,  109-111;  search  for  a 
printer  and  publisher  for  the  Obser- 
vations, III- 1 14;  visit  to  Lyon, 
114,  to  Paris,  114  sqq.;  Henri  IV 
offers  him  a  professorship,  120 ; 
returns  to  Montpellier,  121 ;  sum- 
moned under  the  sign-manual  to 
Paris,  121  sq. ;  leaves  Montpellier, 
122  ;  stay  at  Lyon  and  its  explana- 
tion, 123  ;  reports  of  his  conversion, 
124  sqq.  ;  momentary  wavering,  126  ; 
unjustly   dealt   with   by   the    Lyon 


Casaubon,  Isaac  {cont.'). 

publisher  of  his  Observations  oh 
Athenmus,  128 ;  his  father-in-law 
dies  intestate,  128 ;  twice  visits 
Geneva  on  his  affairs,  128  sq. ; 
aggrieved  by  final  decision  of  the 
genevese  courts,  128 ;  ill-conduct  of 
his  nephew  P.  Chabanes,  130. 

Paris.  Arrival  at,  134 ;  at  the  con- 
ference of  Fontainebleau,  139-144  ; 
in  a  false  position,  144 ;  closeted 
by  du  Perron,  144  sq. ;  report  of  his 
apostacy,  145  ;  protest  of  Casaubon, 
145  ;  silently  rebuked  by  Scaliger, 
146;  spends  the  summer  at  Lyon, 
147  ;  return  to  Paris  and  position 
there,  147  ;  housed  by  H.  Estienne, 
150  sq. ;  his  nervous  sensibility,  153 ; 
hindrances  to  study,  154  sq. ;  in 
receipt  of  a  pension,  164  ;  not  con- 
nected with  the  university  for 
reasons  of  religion,  164-168 ;  no 
longer  anxious  for  a  professorship, 
167  sq. ;  his  relations  with  Marcilius, 
168-171;  O  jcLcturam  temporis !  i^\  \ 
royal  favour,  172  ;  appointed  keeper 
of  the  royal  library  despite  Jesuit 
intrigues,  173  sqq. ;  excerpts  MSS. 
for  foreign  scholars,  183  sq.  ;  for  his 
own  use,  184  ;  does  not  attempt  a 
catalogue,  182,  184  sq. ;  his  Polybius, 
.lEheas  Tacticus,  &c.,  185  sq. ;  av^p 
Bitpvxos,  186 ;  drawn  into  theological 
controversy,  187  sqq. ;  fresh  attempts 
to  convert  him,  188  sqq. ;  not  al- 
lowed to  publish  MSS.  of  the 
Fathers,  192 ;  essays  in  patristic 
criticism,  193  sq.  ;  his  de  libertate 
ecclesiastica  suppressed,  195  sq.  ;  for- 
bidden to  review  Baronius,  196  sq.  ; 
returns  to  Polybius,  197  sqq.  ;  char- 
acter and  object  of  his  edition,  ig8 
sqq.  ;  printing  and  publication,  200 
sq.  ;  dedication,  &c.,  201  sqq.  ;  pre- 
sent from  the  king,  203  ;  unheeded 
in  Paris,  203 ;  his  mental  conditions, 
1605-9,  204  j  liis  vacations,  205  sqq.; 
attendance  at  divine  service,  207 
sqq.,  often  attended  with  peril,  208— 
210  ;  his  troubles  in  Paris,  212  sqq. : 
(i)  religious,  212-216  ;  (2)  depend- 
ence on  the  court,  216  ;  (3)  Jesuit  de- 
famation, 217  sq.  ;  (4)  misrepresent- 
ation by  co-religionists,  219-226  ; 
(5)  bereavements  and  family  troubles, 
226-230 ;  (6)  troubles  from  the 
Estienne,  230-232 ;  (7)  financial 
embarrassments,  232-237  ;  (8)  death 
of  friends,  ill-health  of  himself  and 
family,  237-244  ;  reasons  for  wish- 


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491 


Casaubon,  Isaac  (cont.). 

ing  to  leave  Paris,  245  sq. ;  over- 
tures from  Geneva,  247  ;  from  Hei- 
delberg, 248-251  ;  from  Nimes,  251 
sq.  ;  thinks  of  a  retreat  to  Sedan, 
252,  of  a  visit ,  to  Venice,  253-255  ; 
why  not  invited  to  Leyden  in  suc- 
cession to  Scaliger,  256-258  ;  turns 
his  thoughts  to  England,  262 ;  cor- 
responds with  James  I,  264  sq.  ; 
plans  a  visit,  265  ;  sympathy  with 
the  anglo-catholic  school,  266  sq.  ; 
receives  tidings  of  the  death  of 
Henri  IV,  267  sq.  ;  final  conference 
with  du  Perron,  268  sq.  ;  did  he 
waver  ?  269  sq. ;  invitation  from 
archbishop  Bancroft,  271;  obtains 
a  furlough  from  the  french  court, 
273  ;  crosses  the  channel,  274  sq,  ; 
at  Dover,  275  ;  at  Canterbury,  276  ; 
arrives  in  London,  277. 

London,  &o.  At  the  deanery  of  S. 
Paul's,  277  sq. ;  at  Lambeth,  ib.  ; 
reception  by  dean  Overall,  arch- 
bishops Bancroft  and  Abbot,  c&c, 
277  sq.  ;  at  court,  279  ;  a  favourite 
with  the  king,  280  ;  subjects  of  con- 
versation, 280  sq. ;  obtains  leave  of 
absence  from  the  french  court,  281 ; 
James  grants  him  a  pension  of  jfsoo 
a  year,  282  sq. ;  not  a  prebendary 
of  Westminster,  320  ;  naturalised, 
284  ;  calls  on  his  time,  284  sqq.  ; 
diverted  to  ecclesiastical  topics,  285 
sqq.  ;  spirit  of  investigation  wanting 
in  England,  290  ;  Casaubon's  chief 
friends ; — Andrewes,  292-4,  Overall, 
294,  James  Montagu,  Robert  Abbot, 
J.  Prideaux,  295,  Richard  Thomson, 
295-297 ;  relations  with  Bacon, 
Camden,  and  Cotton,  297-300  ;  ex- 
pects to  return  to  Paris,  300 ;  settles 
in  London,  301  sq.  ;  approves  the 
anglican  ritual,  302  sq.  ;  fewer  in- 
terruptions, 303 ;  attendance  at 
court,  &c.,  304  ;  visits  from  Calixtus, 
305  sq.,  from  Grotius,  306  ;  work 
accomplished  during  residence  in 
England,  307  sq. ;  controversial 
writings,  308-314  ;  undertakes  the 
refutation  of  Baronius,  315  ;  rela- 
tions with  Baronius,  318  sq. ;  results 
of  a  critical  examination  of  the 
Annates,  326-330  ;  the  Exercitationes, 
331-340 ;  its  history  and  progress, 
342-345 ;  miscellaneous  reading, 
345  sq. ;  holidays,  346 ;  with  An- 
drewes at  Cambridge  and  Down- 
ham,  347  sqq. ;  his  occupations  there, 
348  sq. ;  impatient  to  return  to  Lon- 


Casaubon,  Isaac  (coni). 

don,  350-352  ;  takes  no  holiday  in 
1612,  352  ;  visit  to  Oxford,  354  sqq.; 
surveys  the  colleges,  356  ;  disputa- 
tion in  the  divinity  school,  357  ;  at 
the  deanery,  358  ;  fsted,  359 ;  a 
reader  in  the  Bodleian  library,  360- 
364  ;  intercourse  with  Abbot,  Pri- 
deaux, and  Kilbye,  365  sqq.  ;  causes 
of  discomfort  in  London,  373  sqq.  ; 
plagiarism  by  R.  Montagu,  374  sqq. ; 
jealousy  of  his  English  friends,  376 
sqq.;  neglected  by  Wotton,  379  sqq.; 
favoured  by  the  church  party  only, 
381  ;  suffers  actual  violence,  382 
sqq.  ;  ignorance  of  english  and  con- 
sequent embarrassments,  385  sq.  ; 
application  to  the  king,  386  ;  income 
and  expenditure,  387  sq.  ;  attacked 
by  catholic  pamphleteers,  389  sq.  ; 
Eudaemon-Johannes'  Responsio  ad 
epist.  I.  Casauboni,  390-394  ;  Sciop- 
pius'  Holofemis  Krigsoederi  responsio, 
391,  394  sq.  ;  relations  to  Schott, 
396-399,  to  Welser,  399  sq.  ;  to  the 
calvinists  of  the  continent,  Cappel, 
401,  du  Moulin,  401-405 ;  applica- 
tions from  preferment-hunters,  406- 
408  ;  more  and  more  dependent  on 
his  wife,  408-411;  growing  ill-health, 
412-415  ;  his  last  illness,  415-417  ; 
death,  417  ;  post  mortem  examina- 
tion, ib. ;  marks  of  James'  sympathy, 
417  sq.  ;  funeral  in  Westminster 
Abbey  and  monument,  418  sq. ;  his 
will,  419,  467-469. 

Charaoteristio .  Writes  with  reluct- 
ance, 421  ;  dissatisfied  with  the 
incompleteness  of  his  work,  422  ; 
killed  himself  over  the  Exercitationes, 
421-423  ;  yearning  for  more  time, 
423  ;  crushed  by  the  mass  of  his 
materials,  423  sq. ;  fate  of  his  papers, 
tile  Ephemerides,  Sec,  424  sq. ;  Casau- 
boniana,  425  sq.  ;  an  abundant,  not 
a  witty,  talker,  426  sq.  ;  nature  of 
his  Adversaria,  428-430 ;  of  his 
notes  in  printed  books,  429  ;  his  un- 
accomplished schemes,  430-433 ; 
works  imperfectly  executed,  433 ; 
his  books  forgotten,  433  sq  ;  but 
the  scholar  greater  than  his  books, 
434  *??•  i  l^'S  lesson — '  genius  is 
patience,'  436 ;  a  life  of  research, 
436-438  ;  its  misery  due  to  external 
circumstances,  439  ;  Casaubon's  love 
of  reading,  439  sq.;  his  favourite 
authors,  441  ;  his  habitual  attitude 
of  prostration  before  the  unseen, 
441  sq.  ;    his  superstition,  442  sq. ; 


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INDEX. 


Casaubok,  Isaac  {cont.). 

destitute    of   imagination,    but    at- 
tracted by  the  marvellous  in  nature, 

443  sq.,  and  by  striking  natural  facts, 

444  sq.  ;  his  intolerance,  446  sq.  ; 
'  fusionist '  attitude  toward  religious 
parties,  447  sq.  ;  '  thinkers '  and 
'  scholars,'  448  sq.  ;  Casaubon  '  the 
first  to  popularise  a  connected  know- 
ledge of  the  life  and  manners  of  the 
ancients,'  450;  the  type  of  the 
french  school  of  scholars,  454  sq.  ; 
not  a  great  grammarian,  455,  or 
textual  critic,  456 ;  his  conjectural 
emendations,  456  sq.,  473  ;  seeks  to 
penetrate  through  language  to  the 
thoughts  conveyed  by  it,  457  ;  his 
notes  the  staple  of  the  '  Variorum ' 
editors,  and  in  part  not  yet  super- 
seded, 458  sq.  ;  his  direct  style  as 
an  annotator,  460  ;  his  love  of  truth, 
461  sqq,  ;  his  limitations  many,  but 
in  the  age,  not  in  the  man,  463  sq. 
History  of  his  papers,  469  sqq.  ;  chro- 
nological list  of  his  works,  475-483  ; 
pseudepigrapha,  483  sq. ;  his  descen- 
dants, 485  sq. 

Works  and  editions,  lectures,  &c.: — 
Adversaria,  i,  48,  56,  75,  Sgsj.  ,205, 

294.  340.  346,  349,  364,  427  sq., 

469,  473- 
^neas  Tacticus,  185  sq.,  446. 
Anthology,  the,  i. 
Apuleius,  39,  477. 
Aristophanes,  44,  168,  482  sq. 
Aristotle,  the,  of  1590,  52,  114,  433, 

464,  476  ;  Ethics,  100  5^. ;  PoeticSj 

286  ;  Politics,  204. 
Arrianus'  Diatribx,  45  sq. 
Athenaeus,  32,  37  sq.,    48   sqq.,  52, 

55.  75>  93,  104  s??.,  108  sqq.,   123, 

127  sqq.,  134,  147,  156,   186,  197, 

201,  204,  244,  314,  316,  340,  346, 

431,  440,  445,  459,  473,  477,  480. 
Augustan  historians,  the,  255,  296, 

,318,433,  440,.  463,  478. 
De  libertate  ecclesiastica,  196,204,  272, 

479- 
Dicaearchus,  476. 
Dio  Chrysostomus,  478. 
Diogenes  Laertius,  31  sq.,  35,  43,  47, 

49,  54.  253,  431,  433,  475,  477- 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  32,  121, 

457,  476. 
Ephemerides,  2,  29  5^.,  57  ;  described, 

87-93  ;  100,  no,  144,  424  sq.,  483, 

and  passim. 
Epistola  ad  Frontonem,  307  sq.,  310, 

313,  317,  358,  389,  397,  480. 
Epistola  ad  Lingelshemium,  307,  480. 


Casaubon,  Isaac  {cont.). 

Epistolse,  2,  481  sqq.,  &c. 

Exercitationes  in  Baronium,  25,  300, 
306  sq. ;  their  form  and  execution, 
331-340  ;  354,  358,  361,  368,  373, 
376,  388,  393  sq.,  403,  408  sq.,  415 
sq.,  421  sq.,  428  sqq.,  440  sqq.,  446 
sq.,  460,  481. 

Gregorius  Nyssen.,  478. 

■ — Thaumaturgus,  478. 

Herodotus,  i,  168,  431. 

Hippocrates,  Oath  of,  100  sq.,  467, 
481. 

Itiscriptio  Herodis,  186,  479. 

Jerome,  S.,  121. 

Lectiones  Theocritiae,  27,  48  sq.,  433, 

440,  475,  477- 

Leo's  Tactica,  184. 

New  Testament,  the,  49,  336,  475. 

Persius,  43,  46,  100  sq.,  446,  459, 
478. 

Polyaenus,  199,  458,  476. 

Polybius,  45  sq.,  154,  185  sq.,  191, 
195  ;  history  of  the  edition,  197- 
203  ;  244,  253  sq.,  280  sq.,  285, 
296,  299,  314  sqq.,  319,  340,  355, 
380,  399 ;  published,  424  ;  427, 
429,  431  5?.,  440,  464,  479,  481. 

Responsio  ad  Epistolam  card.  Per- 
ronii,  307  sqq.,  446,  480. 

Scaligeri,  J.  J.,  opuscula,  479. 

Strabo,  26,  32,  49  sq.,  63,  314,  431, 
440,  443  sq.,  459,  475. 

Suetonius,  39,  43,  45,  63,  75,  185, 
204,  233,  240,  254,  296,  314,  457, 

459,  461,  477- 
Theophrastus,   43  sq.,  63,    120   sq., 
201,  204,  433,  446,  459,  477- 

Casaubon,  Isaac  (living  1729),  486. 

—  James  (son  of  Isaac),  89,  278,  303, 
378,  410,  485. 

—  Jeanne  (d.  of  Isaac  by  his  first  wife), 
20,  73,  485. 

—  Jehanne  Mergine,  nee  Rousseau 
(mother  of  Isaac),  3  ;  native  of  Dau- 
phine,  4  ;  her  nine  children,  7  ;  Isaac 
visits  her  at  Die,  97,  at  Lyon,  122  ; 
death,  227  ;  232. 

—  Jehanne  (d.  of  Isaac),  73,  276,  485. 

• —  John  (son  of  Isaac),  88,  209  ;  per- 
version, 215  ;  228  sq.,  269,  275,  387, 
410,  419,  424,  468,  470,  485  sq. 

—  John  (the  younger,  son  of  Meric), 
486. 

— Margaret  (wife  of  John  the  younger), 
486. 

—  Marie  (d.  of  Isaac),  276,  485. 

—  Meric  (s.  of  Isaac),  at  Sedan,  229, 
252  ;  letter  from  Isaac  to,  229  sq.  ; 
at  Eton,  388  ;  at  Christ  Church,  418  ; 


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INDEX, 


493 


at  Canterbury,  89,  425 ;  letter  to  P. 
de  la  Mare,  469  sqq.  \  marries,  486  ; 
his  descendants,  ib.  ;  characterised, 
229;    his  Pietas,  2,   5,  25,  49,    121, 

193,  215,  368,  395.  397,  399.  420, 
424,  478  ;  mentioned,  209,  258,  269, 
303,  389,  424,  431,  481  sq.,  484  sq. 

—  Meric  (grandson  of  Meric),  486. 

—  Paul    (son   of  Isaac),  276,  424  sq., 

485  «?• 

—  Paul  (living  1863),  486. 

—  Pauline  (d.  of  Isaac),  485. 

—  Philippa  (d.  of  Isaac),  150,  208  sq., 
214  sq, ;  death,  227  sq. ;  230,  242, 
244,  271,  385,  485. 

—  Sara  (s.  of  Isaac),  see  Chabanes,  S. 

—  Sarah  (d.  of  John  the  younger), 
486. 

—  Stephen,  lieut.col.,  486. 

—  William  (m.  1743),  486. 
Casauhoniana,  425  sq.,  482. 
Caselius  (Johann  Chessel),  217,  306. 
Castres,  61,  80,  97,  121. 

Castro,  Leo  a,  335,  363. 

Catherine   (de  Medicis),  queen,   120, 

181  sq. 
Catullus,  171. 
Cavalli,  Marino,  158. 
Cayet,  Pierre,  166. 
Cazaubon,    cradle    of   the    Casaubon 

family,  4. 
Cecil,  Robert,  earl  of  Salisbury,  283. 
Cedrenus,  104. 
Cellerier,  prof.,  72. 
Celsus,  432. 
Censorinus,  421. 

Cevennes,  horned  man  from  the,  445. 
Chabanes,  Charles,  7. 

—  Isaac,  275,  387,  410,  467. 

—  Pierre,  130,  227. 

—  Sara  (nee  Casaubon),  7  ;  death,  227. 
Chalcedon,  council  of,  363. 
Chamberlain,  J.,  377,  380,  382. 

•Chamier,  D.,  124,  145. 
Charenton,  7,  207  sqq.,  220  sq.,  224, 
404,  420. 

—  synod  of,  339. 

—  S.  Maurice,  210. 

Charles,  prince  of  Wales  (afterwards 
Charles  I),  304,  356. 

—  VII  (king  of  France),  158. 

—  IX,  179,  261. 

Charles  Emmanuel  I,  duke  of  Savoy, 

18,  51,  248. 
Charlotte  of  Bourbon,  249. 
Chateaubriand,  edict  of,  3. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  419. 
Chelsea,  projected  college  at,  289, 391. 
Chevalier  (professor  at  Geneva),  24. 
Chillingworth,  W.,  391,  414- 
Chinese  in  1841,  anecdote  of,  463. 


Chiselhurst,  299. 
Choniates,  Nicetas,  363. 
Chouet,  Francois,  46,  iii,  233. 
Chrestien,  Florent,  202. 
Christian  of  Anhalt,  249. 
Christie,  R.  C,  480. 
Christmann,  Jacob,  66. 
Chrysostom,    S.   John,    39,   96,    105, 
189,  192,  199,  231,  342,  345  sq.,  355 

^?-,  375,  432,  441- 
Chytraeus,  D.,  100. 
Cicero,  Brutus,   quoted,  256;   Letters 

io  Atticus,  46,  296,  432,  481, 
Ciron  (of  Toulouse),  98. 
Clarendon,  lord,  304,  414. 
Clement,  Antony,  254,  256. 

—  David,  324. 

Clement  VIII,  pope,  211,  318. 

Clement,  S,,  327. 

Clinton,  Fynes,  90. 

Cobet,  C.  G.,  35,  455  sq.,  473. 

Codelongue,  David,  469. 

Coler,  Christopher,  119. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  430. 

Coligny,  admiral,  139. 

Colomies,  Paul,  397,  432. 

Commelin,  Jerome,  28,  36  sq.,  39,  63, 

108,  III,  240,  433,  477. 
Commines,  Philippe  de,  281. 
Concilia  (roman  edition),  363. 
CondS,  chateau  de,  141. 

—  Louis,  prince  of,  120,  271. 
Conington,  John,  459. 
Conrart,  Valentin,  116. 
Constantine,  Robert,  442  sq. 
Constantine  endowment,  the,  335. 
Constantinople,  238,  363,  451. 
Constantinus  Porphyrogeneta,  186. 

'  Convertisseurs,'  their  methods,    124 

sq. 
Copyright,  37. 
Corbinelli,  J.,  38. 
Cordova,  76. 
Corradus,  Sebast.,  482. 
Corranus,  A.,  127. 
Coryat,  T.,  151,  155. 
Coton,  pere,  124,  176  sq. 
Cotton,    sir  Robert   Bruce,   288,   299 

■s?-,  362,  378. 
Cousin,  Victor,  449. 
Coutras,  battle  of,  24. 
Cox,  bishop  Richard,  19,  349. 
Cramer,  dr.  J.  A.,  261. 
Cramoisy,  Beys,  and  Co.,  200  sq. 
Cranmer,  archbishop  Thomas,  283. 
Crenius,  T.,  332,  462  sq. 
Crespin,  Jean,  27. 
Crest,  4  sj.,  73,  122. 
Crete,  8,  390,  398. 
Creuzer,  F.,  331,  439. 
Crevier,  J.  B.  L  ,  r66. 


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494 


INDEX. 


Cricebant,  Madame  de,  208. 
Crottet,  — ,  72. 
Croydon,  278,  304,  369. 
Ci'iisius,  Martin,  8. 
Cujas,  J.,  78,  118,  174. 
Cuneeus,  P.,  257. 
Cyclomeirica,  the,  of  Scaliger,  64. 
Cyprian,  S.,  345,  364,  367,  404. 

D. 

Daersen,  — ,  222. 

Danes,  P.,  158. 

Dareie,  Abraham,  484. 

Darmarius,  Andreas,  his    transcripts, 

Dauphine,  11,  162. 
Decretals,  the  false,  332,  462. 
De  Morgan,  Augustus,  55. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  448  sq. 
Desbordes,  the,  276. 
Des  Portes,  Thiou,  176. 
Digby,  sir  John,  395. 
Die  (Dauphine),  25,  97. 
Dijon,  162,  205. 
Dio  Cassius,  6a. 
Dio  Chrysostomus,  460. 
Diocletian,  327. 
Diodati,  John,  232,  247. 

—  Theodore,  262. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  see  Casaubon,  I. 

Diogenianus,  396,  399. 

Dionysius  Areopagita,  334  sq.,  346. 

—  of  Halicarnassus,  see  Casaubon,  I. 

—  the  Carthusian,  352. 
Dioscorides,  87. 
Directorium  Inquisitionis,  310. 
D'Israeli,  Isaac,  414. 
Dobree,  P.  P.,  428. 
Donne,  dr.  John,  187,  318. 
Donnington,  348. 
Doschius,  P.  N.,  73, 

Douai,  161  sq. 

Dousa,  Theodore,  65,  239. 

Douze,  river,  4. 

Dover,  274  sq.,  346,  409. 

Do^vnes,  Andrew,  455. 

Downham,  visit  of  Casaubon  to,  347- 

352,  441-  , 
Drayton,  Michael,  419. 
Drome,  river,  4. 
Drouard,  Jerome,  200  sq.,  478. 
Droysen,  J.  G.,  460. 
Drusius,  J.,  257. 
Due,  Fronto  le,  138,  188  sq.,  192,  203, 

282,  286   400. 
Du  Cange,  C,  449. 
Dufour,  Theophile,  2  sq.,  73-75. 
Du  Laurens,  And.,  232,  247. 
Du   Moulin,  Pierre,  139,  158,  209,  220 

sq.,  224, 248 ;  relations  with  Casaubon, 


401-405 ;  his  Defense  de  la  Foi  catho 
lique  criticised  by  Casaubon,  404  sq. 

Dunbar,  George  earl  of,  279. 

Duncker,  Andrew  (of  Brunswick), 
481. 

Du  Perron,  J.  D.,  cardinal,  6i ;  on 
Casaubon's  French  and  Latin,  88, 
124  ;  on  Mornay,  136  ;  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Fontaiuebleau,  138-145;  176, 
187  ;  attempts  to  convert  Casaubon, 
189  sqq.,  213  sq.\  on  Fra  Paolo, 
19s.  255  ;  215  s?.,  219,  223,  236,  266 
sq.\  last  attempt  to  convert  Casaubon, 
2685^. ;  270,  279,  286,  309,  317,  368, 
398,  400  sqq.,  446,  462. 

Dupleix,  Scipio,  173. 

Du  Plessis-Mornay,  see  Mornay. 

Du  Puy,  Christophe,  186,  243,  479. 

Durand  (pastor),  209. 

Durandus,  147. 

Dutch  editors  of  the  classics,  458 ; 
shun  Greek,  ib. 

Du  Tiloir  (of  Sedan),  305. 

Duval,  A.,  165,  169. 

Dyer,  T.  H.,  72. 

E. 

Earth  from  Palestine,  442. 

Edinburgh,  264. 

Egger,  E.,  quoted,  loi. 

Elam,  Thomas,  469. 

Elisabeth,    Electress     Palatine,    371, 

377.  407- 

—  queen,  21,  57,  321,  383. 

Ely,  292  sq.,  347  sq.  ;  bishops  of,  non- 
resident, 347. 

English,  the,  their  insularity,  262 ; 
Scaliger's  opinion  of,  265  ;  given  up 
to  theology,  286  sqq. ;  hatred  of 
foreigners,  383,  406. 

—  and  Reformed  Churches,  relations 
of,  420. 

Entragues,  Henriette  d',  175.  * 

Epernon,  due  d*,  144,  270. 

Ephrem  Syrus,  363. 

Epiphanius,  335. 

Epistolce  ohscuvoruvn  virorum,  115,  461. 

Erasmus,  326,  335,  461,  474. 

Ernesti,  J.  A.,  459. 

Erpenius,  T.,  220. 

Erskine,  H.,  106. 

Espencseus,  Claudius,  364. 

'  Esprit,'  French,  secret  of  its  power, 

117. 
Essex,  Robert  Devereux  earl  of,  294. 
Estienne  family,  the,  149  sq.,  393. 

—  Antoine,  199,  215,  481. 

—  Florence,  27 ;  see  Casaubon,  Flor- 
ence. 

—  Francois,  150. 


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INDEX. 


495 


— ^  Henri  (Henricus  Stephanus  II), 
father  of  madame  Casaubon,  and 
editor  of  the  Thesaurus,  19,  27  ;  his 
PoetoB  Greed,  Idyllic  poets,  Qbserva- 
Hones  in  Theocritum,  27  ;  third  mar- 
riage, 28  ;  decline  of  his  fortunes, 
30  ;  excludes  Casaubon  from  his 
library,  30-32,  40 ;  editions  of  Thu- 
cydides,  &c.,  32  ;  dies  intestate,  32, 
68,  114,  128 ;  death  of  madame  Es- 
tienne,  68,  123  ;  his  library,  types, 
&c.,  129,  231  sq.,  248  ;  468,  476  sq. 

—  Henri  (the  younger),  150-152,  259. 
— •  Paul,  108,  129,  215,  230  sq. 

—  Robert  I,  his  will,  68,  129 ;  150, 
200,  231. 

—  Robert  II,  150. 

—  Robert  III,  150,  193,  200,  478. 
Estouleville,  cardinal  d',  161. 
Estrdes,  Gabrielle  d',  175,  203. 
Eton,  183,  346,  354  sq.,  358,  373,  375, 

388. 
Euckologion  (of  Venice),  363. 
Eudaemon-Joannes,  Andreas,  295,  314, 

365,  386,  389,  395,  461- 
Eunapius,  349  sq. 
Euripides,  35,  46. 
Eusebius,  39,  183  ;  Excerpta  Eusebiana, 

261. 
Evreux,  bishop  of,  see  Du  Perron. 
Ewelme,  359. 

F. 

Fagius,  Paulus,  283. 

Farnaby,  Thomas,  296. 

Fasti  Siculi,  in  the  Palatine  library,  75. 

Faur,  Pierre  du,  98. 

Favre  (of  Geneva),  39. 

Faye,  de  la  (.rector  of  the  University 
of  Geneva'!,  9,  223. 

Fen  country,  Casaubon  on,  348. 

Fenouillet,  bishop  of  Montpellier,  108. 

Fernelius,  J.  F.,  443. 

Ferrara,  8. 

Ferus,  Johannes,  363. 

Fisher,  John,  390. 

Flanders,  161  sq.,  176,  311. 

Flemings,  the,  settled  in  London,  383. 

Fleury,  Claude,  325. 

Florence,  379. 

Flottemanville,  — ,  339. 

Flushing,  237. 

Foix,  Paul  de,  117  sq. 

Fontainebleau,  179,  182,  202, 446 ;  con- 
ference of,  61,  90,  135-147  ;  victory 
claimed  by  the  Catholics,  144;  259, 

4°3- 
Francis  I  (king  of  France),    119,  158, 

179,  206,  251,  445  sq. 
Franconia,  241. 


Franequer,  66. 

Frankenthal,  21. 

Frankfort,  22,  38  sq.,  42,  56,  67,  74  sq., 
113,  201,  344. 

Frederick  IV,  Elector  Palatine,  65, 
248  sq. 

Freher,  Marquard,  66,  183,  249. 

Fresne,  Canaye  de,  23  sq.,  37  ;  his  bio- 
graphy, 61  ;  friendship  with  Casau- 
bon, ib. ;  becomes  a  catholic,  61,  144 ; 
62,  66,  70  sq.,  75,  80,  82,  87,  93, 
97  sq.,  103,  106  sq.,  121,  125,  139, 
167,  225,  475. 

Fritsch,  C,  and  M.  Bshm  (of  Rotter- 
dam), 482. 

Fulham,  378. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  289,  419. 


Gaberel,  — ,  15,  73. 

Gaisford,  dean  Thomas,  399. 

Galen,  84,  473. 

Galesius,  35. 

Galland,  P.,  158. 

Gallicanism,  194,  196,  260. 

Gambinga,  472. 

Garasse,  Fran9ois,  320. 

Garnett,  Henry,  287,  312,  314 ;  his 
'straw,'  ^12 sq.,  384. 

Geneva, MS.  materials  at,  for  biography 
of  Casaubon,  i ;  societe  d'histoire 
de,  2  ;  Casaubon  born  at,  3  ;  citizen 
of,  4  :  academy  of,  i  ;  materials  for 
its  history,  72  sq. ;  Casaubon  a  student 
at,  6 ;  under  Calvin,  10 ;  statutes 
and  early  character,  11  sqq.,  'jzsqq.  ; 
organised  by  Calvin,  12 ;  subscrip- 
tion for  students  abolished  (1576),  13 ; 
a  great  resort  for  foreign  students, 
ib.  ;  rigorous  discipline  and  theolo- 
gical character,  14 ;  number  of  stu- 
dents, 14  sq.,  of  professors,  15  s?.  ; 
routine  of  work  at,  16  ;  salaries  of 
professors,  17  ;  struggle  of  the  city 
for  existence,  17  ;  siege  of  1589,  18 ; 
peace  of  Vervins,  ib.  ;  ravages  of 
war  and  pestilence,  19  ;  relief  from 
England,  195^.,  from  Holland,  20  ; 
darkest  period,  23  ;  the  academy  to 
be  given  up,  21 ;  suspended,  22 ; 
resumed,  23 ;  its  state  precarious 
in  1611,  73;  law  and  theology,  33 
sq.  ;  scholarship  at,  43  s??.  ;  better 
prospects  of  the  city,  25 ;  its  public 
library,  39  ;  described  by  Wotton, 
41  ;  danger  of,  during  Casaubon's 
professorate,  51  ;  Casaubon  anxious 
to  leave,  67  ;  moves  to  Montpellier, 
70  sq. ;  final  departure,  82  sq. ;  com- 
pared with  Montpellier,  845^.,  103; 


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49*5 


INDEX. 


Casaubon  contemplates  returning, 
107  ;  work  at  Athensus  at,  108  sq.  ; 
printing  at,  112-114 ;  mentioned, 
125,  128,  145, 147, 173, 201,  205,  219, 
224  sy.,  227,  230-232,  239,  242,  247 
sq.,  2.ta,sq.,  296,  315,  317,  379,  388, 
402,406s?.,  431,  482. 
Gentilis,  Alberic,  262. 

—  Scipio,  237,  241,  249,  265. 

—  madame,  276. 

Gergeau,  synod  of,  145,  219,  477. 

Gerlach,  Christian,  481. 

Germain,  M.,  456. 

German  reformation,  the,  322. 

Gerson  de  potestate  ecdesiastica,  195  sq. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  323. 

Gigord,  Jean,  85  sq.,  96,  145. 

Gilet,  Jean,  iii. 

Gillot,  Jacques,  115,  152,   l^lsq.,   176 

sq.,  186,  219,  259,  479. 
Godefroy.  Denis,  66, 248-250. 

—  Jacques,  339. 

Goethe  quoted,  14,  430,.  460,  471. 
Goldast,  Melchior,  73,  196,  247,  249, 

349,  479- 
Gonter,  J.,  188. 

Goodwin,  dr.  William,  358  s?.,  362. 
Gosselin,  Jean,   1735?.,   177,   I79'S?-: 

182. 
Goujet,  C.  P.,  165  sq.,  i6q. 
Goulart,  Simon,  70,  82  sq.,  224,  232. 
Goulu,  Jerome,  166. 
Gourges  ,maitre  de  requetes),  203. 
Gowrie  house,  280. 
Grajvius,  J.  G.,  395,  458,  481s?. 
Granvelle,    John,     marries      Gentille 

Casaubon,  485. 
Gratianus,  462, 
Greek  church,  Casaubon's  interest  in 

the,  254,  267. 
Greek,  neglect  of,  after  the  triumph  of 

Catholicism  in  France,  102. 
Greek  philosophy,  Casaubon's  view  of, 

440. 
Greek  printing  in  the   i6th  century, 

111-113,  231. 
Greenwich,  284,  416. 
Gregoire  (of  Toulouse),  78. 
Gregorius  of  Neocsesareia,  193. 
—  ofNyssa,   186,  193,  200,  249,  433, 

442,  467. 
Gregory  of  Tours,  442. 
Grenoble,  162. 
Grenus,  Fragmens  biographiques,  2,  19, 

33  s?-,  58- 
Greville  memoirs,  the,  437. 
Grigny,    153,  207,  234,  244,  260,  267, 

270,  276,  384,  409. 
Grindal,  archbishop  Edmund,  19. 
Gronovius,  J.  F.,  190,    256,   307,  412, 

431  s?.,  458,  482. 


Gronovius,  James,  482. 

Grote,  George,  323,  460. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  67,  98,  ii4>  I77,  257, 

286  sy.;    in  London,  306  sj. ;    337, 

415,  428, 448. 
Groulart,  — ,  118. 
Gruterus,  J.,  32,  66, 183,  249. 
Grynseus,  J.  J.,  18,  42,  51,  99. 
Gryphius,  Sebastian,  112. 
Gualdo,  Paolo,  99. 
Gualter,  Rodolph,  19. 
Guionius,  J.,  469-471. 
Guises,  assassination  of  the,  25. 
Gunpowder  plot,  the,  311  sqq.,  390. 


H. 


Haarlem,  112. 

Hablon,  207  s?.,  211,  227. 

Hacket,  bishop  John,  279. 

Hague,  the,  177,  245,  273,  407,  481. 

Hales,  John,  414. 

Hallam,   Henry,  269,    306,   320,  331, 

333,  359,  377,  382. 
Hamburg,  426,  482. 
Hampton  court,  284. 
Hannibal,  427. 
Hanniel,  I.,  39. 
Hardt,  Ignatius,  35. 
Harington,  Sir  John,  263,  289. 
Harlay,  Achilla  de,  100,  118,  152,  154, 

163,  176,  233,  259,  261. 
Harpocration,  98. 
Harrison,     Frances,    wife    of    Meric 

Casaubon,  486. 
Harrison,  Thomas,  352. 
Harsy,  Antoine  de,  127  sq.,  201,  477, 

480. 

—  Denis  de,  127. 

—  madame  de,  128,  480  sq. 
Harvey,  William,  77. 
Hautz,  — ,  67. 

Hearne,  Thomas,  422. 

Heber,  Richard,  61. 

Heidelberg,  9  5j.,  23,  36,  39,  74,  112, 
183,  240,  371,  375,  393,  398,  477  ; 
Palatine  library  at,  66  sq.,  75,  186 ; 
university  of,  9  sq. ;  frequented  by 
dutch  students,  20  ;  its  golden  age, 
65-67  ;  Casaubon  offered  a  professor- 
ship, 248-252. 

Heinsius,  Daniel,  9,  53, 183,  241,  256- 
258  ;  his  Poetics,  Theophrastus,  and 
Horatius,  257 ;  270, 286,  2935^5'.,  373, 
415s??. 

Helmstadt,  217,  305,  481. 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  463. 

Hemstershusius,  Tib.,  455,  459. 

Henri  HI,  king  of  France,  25,  180. 

Henri  IV  (of  Navarre),  21  ;  king  of 
France,  20,  25  ;   befriends  Bongars, 


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INDEX. 


497 


6osj. ;  77, 81,90, 93, 113,  ii8;  hates 
men  of  learning,  but  patronises 
literature,  1 19  sq.  ;  gives  Casaubon 
an  audience,  134 ;  at  the  conference 
of  Fontainebleau,  135-144 ;  152 ; 
desires  to  restore  the  university  of 
Paris,  156  sj.;  160,  163;  favour  to 
Casaubon,  171-173;  second  mar- 
riage, mistresses,  175,  203  ;  anxiety 
for  Casaubon's  conversion,  176,  187 
sq. ;  appoints  him  keeper  of  the 
royal  library,  i^i'sq.  ;  180,  ig$  sqq. ; 
accepts  the  dedication  of  Polybius, 
201-203  ;  vvith  Casaubon  at  '  Mad- 
rid,' 206 ;  manipulates  the  edict  of 
Nantes,  211  sq.  ;  216,  222,  233s??., 
24s,  250,  260  sq.,  267  ;  assassinated, 
214,  246,  267  sj.  ;  281,  287,  300,  310 

«?-  315,  324  sq-,  445,  464- 
Henrici- Petri,  Sebastian  (of  Bale),  37. 
Henry,  prince  of  Wales,  304. 
Henry  IV,  emperor,  347. 
Henry,  Paul,  15,  73. 
Heraldus,  D.,  211,  243,  468. 
Herbert,  George,  321. 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  lord,  234. 
Herborn, frequented  by  Dutch  students, 

20. 
Herder,  J.  G.,  430. 
Hermes,  335. 
Herod  family,  the,  304. 
Herodes  Atticus,  463. 
Herodotus,  see  Casaubon,  I. 
Heylin,  Peter,  quoted,  96,  291. 
Hickes,  dr.  George,  479. 
Hierocles,  380. 
Hippocrates,    84,    100   sq.,    104,    11 1, 

442. 
Hoelzlin,  Jeremias,  458. 
Hoeschel,    D.    (of  Augsburg),   31  sq., 

129. 135. 171, 183,  185, 193, 310,  380, 

399,  463,  478  sq.,  484. 
Holdenby,  284. 
Holland,    20,    222,    326 ;    becomes   a 

centre  of  learning,  257. 
Holland,  dr.  Thomas,  367. 
Holstenius,  Lucas,  329,  362. 
Homer,  37,  loi,  432,  445  s?. 
Hortusbonus  or  Hortibonus,  Isaacus, 

=  Casaubon,  27,  475. 
Hoskyns,  John,  377. 
Hospinian,  346. 
Hotman,  Francis,   17,  21,  23,  73,  85, 

116. 
—  Jean,  405,  448. 
Hotomans,  the,  230, 
Houssaye,  Amelot  de  la,  118. 
Howard,  Thomas,  earl  of  Suffolk,  263, 

289. 
Hubert,  Etienne,  23$  sq. 
Hudson,  dr.  John,  425. 


Hugo,  abbot  of  S.  Victor,  352. 
Huguenots,   the,  459.,   135,   138,  150, 

165,  194  ;   their  perilous  position  in 

Paris,  211,  237,  245,  268,  271,  381 ; 

their    liberties    undermined,    211; 

their  common  trait  of  mournfulness, 

245- 
Hume,  Alexander,  407. 
Hydaspes,  335. 

I. 

Ignatius,  epistles  of,  335. 
He  Bouchard  (Touraine),  7. 
Ingoldstadt,  394. 
Islington,  278,  294, 
Isocrates  ad  Demonicum,  5. 


Jacobean  divines,  the,  290  sq. 

James,  S.,  332. 

James  I  (king  of  England),  159,  173; 
his  Apologia  pro  juramento,  203 ; 
his  understanding  and  attainments, 
263,  321 ;  correspondence  with 
Casaubon,  264  sq. ;  266  ;  anxious  to 
secure  him,  272  sq. ;  sends  for  him 
to  Theobalds,  278  ;  converses  with 
him,  shows  him  favour,  and  pro- 
vides for  him,  279-283  ;  his  poverty, 
283  sq. ;  liking  for  Casaubon,  284 
sq. ;  his  interests  mainly  ecclesias- 
tical, 286  sqq. ;  301,  304  sq.,  307, 
310  sq. ;  his  Monitory  epistle,  312  ; 
344  sq.,  354,  356,  369,  371,  377 
sqq.,  381,  386,  389,  391,  393s??.,  402, 
405  sqq.,  415  ;  continues  Casaubon's 
pension  to  his  widow,  417,  and  pro- 
vides for  one  of  his  sons,  418  ;  424, 
446,  469,  481,  483. 

Jane,  William,  469. 

Jardine,  David,  313. 

Jerome,  S.,  35,  104,  121. 

Jesuits,  obtain  the  control  of  educa- 
tion in  France,  161 ;  banished  from 
Paris,  161  sq.,  180  ;  attempt  to  put 
them  down  unsuccessful,  162  sq.  ; 
recalled  to  France  (1603),  175 ; 
their  system  of  defamation,  217, 
269;  311;  prestige  of  their  train- 
ing, 391;  espouse  classical  learning, 
c.  1600,  461,  but  introduce  into  it 
the  spirit  of  unveracity,  462  sq. 

Joachim,  abbot,  prophecies  of,  350. 

Jonson,  Ben,  293. 

Josephus,  432. 

Jourdain,  — ,  260. 

Joyeuse,  cardinal,  118. 

Julius  Africanus,  36. 

Jungerman,  G. ,  249. 

Junius,  Fr.,  482. 


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498 


INDEX. 


Junius,  Hadrian,  iia,  349  s?. 

'Junius,  letters  of,'  115. 

Jussie,  — ,  18. 

Justell  (of  Sedan),  305. 

Justin,  60. 

Justinian,  450. 

Juvenal,  377,  432. 

K. 

Kilbye,  Richard,  366-371. 
Killigrew,  madame,  301,  304. 
King,  bishop  John,  ago,  378. 
Kirchmann,  J.,  242. 
Knott,  Edward,  391. 
Koran,  the,  238. 
Kuster,  L.,  44,  482  sq. 


Labbe,  Charles,  183  sq.,  238,  261,  286, 

299. 
La  Boderie,  — ,  174,  202,  a8o,  310. 
La  Bretonni6re  (near  Chartres),   153, 

207,  260. 
La  Charity,  149. 
La  Croix  du  Maine,  150. 
La  Flgche,  203. 
Lake,  bishop  Arthur,  285. 
Lamb,  bishop  Andrew,  264. 
Latnbinus,  D.,  158,  453,  482. 
Languedoc,  76,  78  sqq.,  85,  97,  446. 
La  Place,  P.  S.,  53. 
La  Rochelle,  22. 
Larroque,  Tamizey  de,  62. 
La  Salette,  313. 
Laud,  archbishop  William,  266,   339, 

357,  420,  444- 
Lausanne,     university     of,     11,    73 ; 

Canaye  de  Fresne  at,  61. 
League,  wars  of  the,  25,  158,  175,  179 

sq.^  217. 
'  Learning '  defined,  435. 
Leclerc,  J.,  339. 
—  Nicolas,  68,  129,  231. 
Lect,  Jacques,    19,  33  sq. ;  friendship 

with  Casaubon,  57  sq.  ;  69,  85,  232, 

247. 
Le  Faucheur  (pastor),  209. 
Lefebre,  dr..  237,  243. 
Le  Ffevre,  Nicolas,   116,  120,  186. 
Legatt,  Bartholomew,  294,  446. 
Leibnitz,  G.  W.  von,  437. 
Leicester,     Robert    Sydney    earl    of, 

420. 
Le  Maire  (printer),  114. 
Le  Maitre,  — ,  118. 

Lennox,  Ludovick  Stuart  duke  of,  264. 
Le   Preux,  J.   (printer),   74,  114,  475, 

477- 
Le  Puy,  161. 


Lesdjguieres,  Francis  de  Bonne,  due 
de,  162. 

L'Estoile,  Pierre,  57,  91,  139,  175, 
193,  203,  206,  208,  211,  268,  338, 

Leunclavius,  J.,  his  relations  with 
Casaubon,  62. 

Leyden,  9  sq.,  90,  62  sq.,  65  sq.,  151, 
183,  220,  239  sq.,  250  sq.,  256-258, 
261,  293,  407,  416,  439,  454,  4835?. 

L'Hermite,  — ,  265. 

Libanius,  165. 

Libezeit,  Chr.,  482. 

Libraries  in  the  sixteenth  century,  39 ; 
at  Paris,  120 ;  the  english  royal 
library,  174,  179. 

Limoges,  161. 

Lingard,  dr.  John,  310. 

Lingelsheim,  G.  M.,  25,  29,  249  sj.,  393, 
439,  480. 

Lipsius,  Justus,  56,  74,  154,  176  sq., 
252,  363- 

Liveley,  chronology  of,  346. 

Livy,  199,  450. 

Lloyd,  bishop  William,  421. 

Lobeck,  Ch.  A.,  331,  414,  435  sq.,  484. 

Lobel,  Matthias  de,  263. 

Loire,  river,  149. 

London,  Aldersgate,  262 ;  Bishops- 
gate,  301 ;  Broad  street,  263  ;  Camo- 
mile street,  301 ;  Drury  lane,  302  ; 
dutch  church,  406  sq. ;  Ely  house, 
294,  349  ;  french  church,  420,  467  ; 
Highgate,  263  ;  Lambeth,  277  sq.  ; 
Leadenhall,  301  ;  Lombard  street, 
444;  S.  Mary  Axe,  301  sq.,  348; 
S.  Paul's,  277  sq.,  302  ;  Westminster 
abbey,  418-420;  Whitehall,  304, 
321  ;  heat  of,  in  1612-13,  352,  409 ; 
street  bullies,  382  sq. ;  books  by 
Casaubon  printed  in,  480. 

Lorraine,  161. 

Louis  XIV,  II,  60,  119. 

-XV,  445. 

Louisa  Juliana,  Electress  Palatine,  249. 

Louvain,  university  of,  20,  390,  398. 

Lubbert,  Sibrand,  50,  484. 

Lucianus,  458. 

Lydius,  B.,  406  sq. 

Lyon,  19,  83,  97,  109,  III  ;  book-trade 
at,  112-114;  Casaubon  at,  114,  122 
sq.,  126-128;  135,  147  sqq.,  152,  162, 
201,  207,  259,  318,  388,  446,  476  sq., 
480  .s^. 

M. 

Maasvicius,  Pancrat.,  458. 

Macray,  W.  D.,  366. 

Madrid,  394. 

Magdeburg,  481. 

Magdeburg  centuries,  the,  323  sqq. 


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INDEX. 


499 


Magendie,  H.,  339. 

Maguelonne,  97. 

Mai,  cardinal,  31. 

Maintz,  217. 

Maire,  Theodore,  481. 

Maistre,  Joseph  de,  440. 

Malherbe,  Fran9ois  de,  197,  236. 

Malhespina,  L.,  482. 

Manger,  Michael,  484. 

Mantaleon,  madame  de,  208. 

Mantes,  conference  of,  135. 

Manutius,  Paullus,  482. 

Marcilius,  Theodoras,  85  ;  his  history 
and  relations  to  Casaubon,  168-171. 

Mare,  Philibert  de  la,  424,  469. 

Marie  de  Medicis,  282,  300  sq.,  403. 

Marny  (of  Frankfort),  201. 

Martial,  170;  Scaliger's  Greek  trans- 
lation of,  241  ;  296. 

Martin,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  480. 

- —  Henri,  261. 

—  James,  339,  472,  481. 

—  Jean,  139. 
Martyr,  Peter,  283. 
Mary,  queen  of  Scots,  25, 
Maseres,  Fr.,  godfather  of  Casaubon,  3. 
Massilon,  de  (of  Montpellier),  99. 
Masson,  Gustave,  156. 

Matthew  Paris,  300. 
Maussac,  Jacques  de,  98. 

—  Philippe  Jacques  de,  98,  112,  133. 
Mayerne,  Theodore  de,  243,  304,  387, 

415  ^1;  468. 
Melanchthon,  Philip,  414. 
Melleray,  — ,  445. 
Manage,  Giles,  427,  460,  484. 
Menander  Rhetor,  105. 
Mende,  138. 

Mengine,  meaning  of  the  name,  3. 
Mentel,  J.,  484. 
Mercerus,  see  Mercier,  Jean. 
Mercier,  Jean,  171,  366  s?. 

—  Josias  (seigneur  Des  Bordes),  153, 
207,  234,  366,  468. 

Merlin  (contemporary  of  Casaubon  at 

Geneva),  72. 
Mermaid  tavern,  the,  382. 
Mesmes,  Henri  de,  38,  95,  117. 
Meursius,  J.,  184,  256  sq.,  362,  453. 
Mezeray,  Fran9ois  Eudes  de,  449. 
Michelet,  Jules,  196,  357. 
Milbourne,  Richard,  277. 
Milton,  John,  384,  434,  437. 
Misoponeri  Satyricon,  483. 
'missa,'  Baronius  on,  332. 
Modena,  8. 
Mole,  Edouard,  118. 
Mommsen,  Theodor,  460. 
Mont  de  Marson,  4. 
Montagu,  bishop  James,  320,  378,  386, 

401,  405. 


Montagu,  bishop  Richard,  285,  338 
«?-.365.  Zlhsq.,  392. 

Montfort  (Gascony),  3. 

Montmorency,  constable,  99,  118. 

Montpellier,  34,  58,  62 ;  Casaubon 
accepts  an  invitation  to,  70  sq. ;  its 
early  history,  76  sq.  ;  the  university 
chartered  (1289),  76  ;  materials  for 
its  history,  ib. ;  revival  of  its  medi- 
cal school  imder  Henri  IV,  77  sq.  ; 
faculty  of  law,  78  sq.  \  of  arts,  79  ; 
restored  (1596),  79  sq.  \  arrange- 
ments with  Casaubon,  80-82 ;  his 
entry,  83  ;  in  1664,  84  ;  in  1597,  ib.; 
classical  studies  at,  84  sq. ;  Calvinism 
at,  86  sq. ;  social  life  at,  93 ;  the 
routine  at,  96 ;  Sunday  at,  97  ;  re- 
vival of  classical  literature  at,  98  sqq.; 
Casaubon's  professorial  career  at, 
99-108  ;  colllge  de  Mende  at,  107 
sq. ;  the  university  catholicised,  108 ; 
printing  at,  iii ;  departure  of  Casau- 
bon, 121  sq.,  126 ;  154,  156,  164, 
167,  173,  187,  227,  234,  244,  252, 
315,  317,  348,  412,  456. 

Monumentum  Ancyranum,  the,  396. 

Morel,  CI.,  192. 

—  Federic,  112, 165  sj.,  168  sj.,  183  sy., 
203,  478. 

Moreri,  L.,  460. 

Moris,  Jael,  346. 

Morley,  John,  118. 

Mornay,  Philippe  de  (seigneur  du 
Plessis-Marly),  73,  122  ;  at  the  con- 
ference of  Fontainebleau,  136,  145  ; 
208,  220,  224,  242,  245. 

Morton,  dean  Thomas,  378,  381,  418 
sq.,  444. 

Moryson,  Fynes,  153. 

Miinster  (of  Basel),  432. 

Muretus,  Marcus  Antonius,  4. 

Musgrave,  W.,  155. 

N. 

Nantes,  edict  of,  15,85,  112,  175,  207, 

211  sq.,  448. 
Neran,  Samuel,  229. 
Nettles,  Stephen,  376. 
Nettleship,  Henry,  459. 
Newcastle,  Thomas  duke  of,  486. 
Newmarket,  284. 
Newton,  sir  Isaac,  55,  423. 
Niebuhr,  B.  G.,  60,  430,  471. 
Nimes,  234,  246,  251  sq. 
Nisard,  D.,  quoted,  3,  102. 
Nonnus,  440,  462. 
Norton,  George,  385  sq.,  480. 
Notitia,  the,  362. 
Novellw,  the,  288. 
Nully,  de,  i8o. 


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INDEX. 


O. 


Olsopceus,  v.,  66,  185. 

Ochino,  Bernardino,  283. 

CEcolampadius,  J.,  346. 

Okes,  Nicholas,  480. 

Olivet,  abbe  d',  425. 

Oppian,  440, 

Optatus  Milevitanus,  348  sq. 

Oracula  SibylKna  (1599),  i6o- 

Orange,  361. 

—  Louisa,  princess  of,  139. 

Origen  against  Celsus,  193,  478. 

Originall  of  Idolatries,  the,  484. 

Orleans,  149  sq.,  236. 

Osiander,  363. 

Ossat,  cardinal  d',  118. 

Overall,  dr.  John,  277  sq.,  291,  294  sq., 
300  sq.,  304,  306  sq.,  347,  378,  381, 
418. 

Ovid,  450. 

Oxford,  Bocardo,  370 ;  Bodleian 
library,  1,  343,  360-364,  425,  483; 
..High  street,  356;  S.  Mary's,  371. 
Colleges  :  —  Balliol,  357  ;  Christ 
Church,  358,  362,  418  :  Exeter,  365, 
367  sq.:  Lincoln,  366,  370  ;  Magdalen, 
359  ;  Merton,  355,  357  ;  New,  369. 
Printing  at,  in,  159;  foreigners  at, 
262  sq.;  291,  295,  343,  346;  Casau- 
bon's  visit  to,  354-372  ;  the  Univer- 
sity characterised,  371  sq. ;  393,  418, 
473- 

P. 

Pacius  de  Beriga,.  Julius,  9,  35,  66,  85, 
249,  25  IS  J. 

Padua,  77. 

Palcephatus,  361. 

Palissy,  Bernard  de,  442. 

Panegyrici,  the,  348. 

Paolo,  Fra,  138,  191,  195  sq.,  253-256, 
286,  330,  337,  381. 

Parens,  David,  Ireniann,  66. 

Paris,  Casaubon's  lectures  on  Aristo- 
phanes at,  44;  reform  of  the  statutes 
of  the  university,  81  ;  early  hours 
at,  95;  printing  at,  112;  literary 
society,  1155??. ;  libraries,  120,  151, 
361  ;  Casaubon  invited  '  remettre 
sus  I'universite  de  Paris,'  121  sq. ; 
Casaubon  settles  in,  150  sq.  ;  his 
various  lodgings,  152  sq.  ;  state  of 
the  university  c.  1600,  156-165  ;  its 
low  estate  as  a  place  of  learning, 
168  ;  the  university  and  the  Jesuits, 
260  sq. ;  compared  with  Oxford,  359 
sq.;  427,  453.  Bibliothfeque  Nationale, 
materials  for  biography  of  Casaubon 
in,  I ;  its  history,  179  ;  —  Royale,  its 


history,  172-183  ;  260,  356, 360,  362, 
456.  Colleges  :  de  Clermont,  95, 
161,  180  sq.;  de  Lisieux,  158;  de 
Plessis,  169;  Royal,  T.<=f>sqq.;  its 
greek  professors  (1595-1623),  165 
*?■ ;  235,  261.  Cordeliers,  convent 
of,  153,  181,  260,  382  ;  Faubourg  S. 
Germain,  234 ;  Louvre,  the,  172, 
268;  Madrid  (Bois),  153,  206  s^., 
260;  Parlement  de,  161  sqq.,  165, 
173  ;  Rue  de  la  barre  du  bee,  445  ; 
—  S.  Jacques,  151,  160,  180  ;  Sor- 
bonne,  the,  359,  426  sq.  Prices  at, 
234 ;  books  of  Casaubon  printed  at, 
478  sq.,  481  ;  mentioned,  299,  381 
sq,  396,  398,  424,  &\\& passim.  See 
Casaubon,  I. 

Parsons,  Robert,  300. 

Passerat,  J.,  115,  168. 

Passover,  when  eaten,  336, 

Passow,  Francis,  459. 

Patissons,  the,  112,  150,  193,  200. 

Patricius,  Franciscus,  431. 

Paul,  S.,  441. 

Pauw,  J.  Corn,  de,  484. 

Pelagius,  Alvianus,  363  sq. 

Pelletier,  — ,  309. 

Perier,  — ,  399. 

Perigeux,  161. 

Perillau,  Pierre,  227. 

Peronne,  275. 

Perotti,  N.,  199. 

Perriet,  Jean  de  (Brussels),  483. 

Perrot,  Charles,  13,  23. 

Persius,  170;  see  Casaubon,  \. 

Pesnot  (printer),  114. 

Petavius,  Dionysius,  462. 

Peter,  S.,  326. 

Philip,  president  (Montpellier),  99. 

Philip  II  of  Spain,  20  sq. 

Philip  Neri,  S,  323  sq. 

Philostratus,  105. 

Photius,  35,  129,  135,  380,  397. 

Phrynicus,  484. 

Pigmies,  443. 

Pinaud,  — ,  145. 

Pindar,  loi,  475. 

PithopcEus,  66. 

Pithou,  Francois,  ii$sq.,  119,  139,  146 
sq. 

—  Pierre,  39,  62,  115  sq. 

Pius  V,  pope,  194. 

Placcius,  v.,  483. 

Plague  at  Paris  (1606),  206. 

Plato,  16,  47. 

Plautus,  100,  289. 

Plinius,  32,  35,  442,  451,476. 

Plutarch,  16,  47,  56,  112,  133,  281,  423. 

Poirson, — ,  261. 

Poissy,  colloquy  of,  135. 

Poitou,  219. 


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INDEX. 


501 


Poland,  natural  history  of,  444. 
Pole,  Reginald,  cardinal,  363. 
Poliphilo,  463. 
Polyffinus,  35 -38,  458- 
Polybius,  38  ;  see  Casaubon,  I. 
Pomponazzo,  Pietro,  414. 
Pont-a-Mousson,  161. 
Pope,  Alexander,  no. 

—  dr.  Edmund,  469. 
Popma,  Aus.,  482. 
Porphyrins  de  Prosodia,  38. 
Portus,  .iEmilius,  65  sq. 

—  Franciscus,     Professor    of    Greek 
at  Modena,  9  ;  at  Geneva,  8  sq. ;  44. 

Posselius,  J.,  100. 

Possevin,  Antony,  399. 

Pouppart,  Abigail,  third   wife   of  H. 

Estienne,  s8,  33. 
Prideaux,   John,  25,  56,  295,  365  sq., 

368,  393  sq. 
Priestley,  Joseph,    his   diary,   87  sq., 

449. 
Primaticcio,  F.,  445. 
Primrose,  dr.,  78. 
Printers,  London,  in  1574,  127. 
Printing-press,  influence  of  the,  on  the 

Reformation,  19. 
Proverbs,    Casaubon    contemplates  a 

book  on,  431. 
Psellus,  112,  133. 
Puente,  John  de  la,  335,  363. 
Puteanus,  Erycius,  345,  390,  398. 
Puy,  Claude  du,  116,  168. 

—  Pierre  du,  i68. 

Q. 

Querard,  J.  M.,  483. 
Quesnel,  Pasquier,  360. 
Qu'esi  ce  que  le  Tiers-e'tat?,  115. 

R. 

Rabelais,  Franfois,  84,  loi,  in. 
Racovian  catechism,  the,  446. 
Rainolds,  John,  277,  346,  364,  384. 

—  William,  Calvino-Turcismus,  277. 
Ramus,     Peter,     i57-s?-,     I79,    261; 

Ramist  system  of  grammar,  407. 
Ranchin,  Fran9ois,  loi,  481. 

—  William,  80,  87,  93,  106  sq.,  195. 
Raphelengius,  Franciscus,  367. 
Rapin,  Nicholas,  115. 

Ratte,  Guitard   de,   bishop   of  Mont- 

pellier,  85,  107  sq. 
Ravaillac,  Francois,  310. 
Ravaud,  Pierre,  481. 
Regalian  rights,  the,  333. 
Reims,  162. 

Reiske,  E.,  165,  473,  478. 
Renaissance,   the,  in  Italy,   450  sqq. ; 


a   revival   of  Latin   not    of  Greek, 
rhetorical  not  scientific,  457  ;  learn- 
ing   in    France,   453 ;    in   Holland, 
454  ;  in  North  Germany,  ib. 
Renan,  Ernest,  117,  432. 
Reygersberg,  — ,  225. 
Rhodez,  107,  i6i. 

Rhone,  river,  4. 

Rhosus  (calligraph),  35. 

Richardson,  dr.  John,  347s??.,  352. 

Richeome,  Louis,  78,  138,  162. 

Richer,  Edmond,   161. 

Rigaltius  (Rigault),  Nicolaus,  117,  168, 
182,  206,  315. 

Rigot  (Rigotti),  Anne  (nee  Casaubon), 
7,  209,  230  ;  Jean,  her  husband,  7  ; 
dies,  230. 

Rishanger,  William,  300. 

Rittershusius,  Conradus,  204,  244,  249, 
288. 

Rivet,  Andreas,  67. 

Roanne,  149. 

Rochester,  276,  408. 

Roe,  Sir  Thomas,  363. 

Rogerson,  Bell,  486. 

Romance,  secular,  supplants  hagio- 
graphy,  338. 

Rome,  learning  at,  99  ;  186,  217,  254, 
318,  323.  326,  395. 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  197. 

Rosny,  marquis  de  ;  see  Sully. 

Rostock,  39. 

Rosweyd,  Heribert,  214  sq.,  269,  376, 

39°- 
Rotterdam,  426,  482. 
Rouen,  162. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  10. 
Royston,  284,  309. 
Ruhnken,  D.,  155,  435,  455,  458. 
Russell,  dr.  John,  2,  89,  483. 
Rutgers,  J.,  230. 

S. 

Sa,  Emmanuel,  389. 

S.  Denis,  180. 

—  Gennain,  206. 

Saint-Maur,  edict  of,  5. 

Sainte-Beuve,  C.  A.,  281,  438. 

Salamanca,  161. 

Sales,  S.  Fran9ois  de,  17  sq.,  108. 

Sanderson,  bishop  Robert,  255. 

Sandys,  archbishop  Edwin,  19. 

Sapieha,  — ,  234. 

Saravia,  Hadrian,  262,  282. 

Sarrasin,  J.  A.,  70,  87,  93. 

Satyre  Menippee,  la,  115. 

Saumaise,  Claude,  186,  249,  254,  256, 

258,  291,  392,  453  sq.,  463. 
Saumur,  139,  144,  245. 
Sauve,  synod  of,  87. 


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503 


INDEX. 


Savile,  Sir  Henry,  183,  192,  231,  299, 
338,  342,  346  ;  takes  Casaubon  to 
Oxford,  354-358 ;  373,  375  sq.,  384, 
392,  432. 

—  Thomas,  362. 

Savoy,  17,  23  ;  dukes  of,  17  sq. 

Sayous,  — ,  15,  72. 

Scaliger,  Joseph  Justus,  Epistolce,  a  ; 
eighteen  years  older  than  Casau- 
bon, 3  ;  opinion  of  Casaubon's  learn- 
ing, 6,  63  sq. ;  on  Fr.  Portus,  8  ; 
etters  of  Casaubon,  &c.,  to,  39,  42, 
55,  82,  108,  III,  iig,  129,  169, 
171  sq ,  188,  190,  195,  199,  209, 
238,  240,  242,  250,  252  sq.,  329 ;  his 
letters  to  Casaubon,  &c.,  123,  151 
sq.,  174,  178,  190,  212,  218,  235, 
240,  245,  250,  265  sq. ;  53 ;  be- 
ginning of  correspondence  with 
Casaubon,  63  5^. ;  tries  to  get  him 
an  invitation  to  Leyden,  65,  240  ; 
his  Latin  style  superior  to  Cas- 
aubon's, 88,  308 ;  on  P.  du  Faur, 
98;  reputation  at  Paris,  115-117; 
Henri  IV  anxious  for  his  return  to 
France,  120 ;  the  first  scholar  of 
his  time,  125  ;  on  Mornay,  137 ; 
attacked  by  Jean  Martin,  139;  on 
Casaubon  at  the  conference  of  Fon- 
tainebleau,  146  ;  156,  158  ;  objection 
to  teaching,  164,  167,  440;  166;  on 
Marcilius,  169 ;  on  Gosselin,  174, 
182 ;  Des  Portes'  estimate  of  his 
learning,  176;  his  Eusebius,  183; 
transcribes  whole  books,  184  ;  ap- 
plies to  Casaubon  for  chronological 
fragments,  185;  introduces  Willems 
to  Casaubon,  238 ;  death,  238  ;  his- 
tory of  his  friendship  with  Casau- 
bon, 239-240 ;  leaves  him  a  silver 
cup,  241,  419,  468 ;  their  corre- 
spondence, 2415^.;  Casaubon's  grief 
at  his  death,  238,  24T  sq. ;  243  ;  on 
the  danger  of  the  Huguenots  in 
Paris,  245  sq.;  249 ;  liking  for  Nimes, 
251  -J  257  ;  his  Thesaurus  temporuvn, 
183,  261,  329;  on  the  english,  265 
sq. ;  290,  296 ;  on  the  lutherans, 
306 ;  335  ;  reads  Baronius,  338  ;  his 
reputation  envied  by  Sir  H,  Savile, 
356,  375  ;  on  theological  disputes, 
392  ;  attacked  by  Scioppius,  394  sq.; 
on  Marc  Welser,  396,  400  ;  rela- 
tions with  the  Jesuits,  399  ;  412  ;  his 
MS.  notes,  429  ;  as  drawn  by  Casau- 
bon, 435  ;  436  ;  Bernhardy  on  his 
genius,  450  ;  453  sqq.,  462;  his  Opus- 
cula,  479 ;  his  notes  on  Phrynicus, 
484. 

—  Julius  Caesar,  his  Aristotle's  Hist. 
Animal.,  133. 


Schede,  P.  (Melissus),  66. 

Schiller,  J.  C.  F.,  438. 

Schomberg,  — ,  118. 

Schottus,  Andreas,  310,  396-400,  462. 

Schultze,  dr.  F.,  483. 

Schweighaeuser,  J.,  198,  200,  459. 

Scioppius,  Caspar,   145,  217  sq.,  225, 

305,  3".  314,  329.  390  «?•>  394  ^l; 

420,  480,  483. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  414. 
Scottish     bishops,     consecration      of 

(1601'),  302. 
Scribanius,  C,  217,  366,  397. 
Scrivener,  F.  H.  A.,  419. 
Scriverius,  Petrus,  257. 
Scultetus,  Abraham,  304  sq.,  374  sq., 

398. 
Scylax,  31. 

Sedan,  177,  225,  229,  252,  305,  401. 
Seguier,  chancellor,  99. 
Seine,  river,  207  sqq. 
Selden,  John,  38,  285,  288  ;  his  History 

of  Tithes,  290;  321,  333,  372,  376  ; 

Selden  library,  the,  362. 
Seneca,  32. 

Septuagint,  roman  (1587),  36. 
Serres,  Jean  de,  93,  96,  107. 
Servin,  Louis,  115,  118. 
Sextus  Empiricus,  31. 
Shakespeare,  William,  293. 
Sibylline  oracles,  335. 
Sicilian  vespers,  the,  377. 
Sidney,  Sir  Henry,  406. 
Sigonius,  C,  9,  453. 
Sillery,  Bruslart  de,  118,  201  sq.,  398. 
Sincerus,  Jodocus,  quoted,  97. 
Sirmond,  Jacques,  400,  462. 
Smets,  H.,  66. 

Smith,  W.,  Description  of  England,  355. 
Soissons,  comte  de,  270. 
Soleure,  147  sq.,  265. 
Spa  water,  243,  415. 
Spain,   legend  of  '  Saint  Garnett '  in, 

313- 
Spedding,  James,  263,  289,  297. 
Spelman,  Sir  Henry,  288. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  419. 
Spotswood,     archbishop     John,     29, 

264  sq. 
Stade,  — ,  376. 
Stael,  madame  de,  71. 
Stahelin,  — ,  15,  73. 
Stanley,  dean  A.  P.,  419. 
Stapleton,  Thomas,  446. 
Stephanus  of  Byzantium,  432. 
Still,  bishop  John,  444. 
Stowe,  John,  301,  383. 
Strabo,  recommended  to  Casaubon  by 

his  father,  4,  49. 
Strahan,  George,  215. 
Strassburg,  60,  65  sq.,  75,  483. 


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INDEX. 


503 


Stromer,  P.  L.,  482. 

Strozzi.  marshal,  181  sq. 

Sturbridge  fair,  353. 

Sturm,  J.,  66. 

Suetonius,  422,  437. 

Suisseth,  R.,  363. 

Sully,  Maximilien  de  Bethune,  due  de, 

61,  134,  147  sq.,  154,  192,  201,  203, 

210,  234  sqq.,  268,  302. 
Superville,  dr.,  37. 
Suslyga,  Laurentius,  363. 
Sweertius,  Franciscus,  366,  393. 
Swift,  dean,  quoted,  154. 
Sylburg;ius,  Fr.,  31,  36,  66. 
Symmachus,  edited  by  Lect,  57. 

T. 

Tacitus,  James  I  on,  280  sq. 

Taine,  H.,  449. 

Taylor,  bishop  Jeremy,  191. 

Terence,  229,  289. 

Tertullianus,  46  sy.,  105,  431. 

Theobalds,  278  s?.,  284,  304,  321,  382, 

444- 
Theocritus,  a  fragment  of,  35  ;  197. 
Theodoret,  35,  142  sq. 
Thirty  years'  war,  311. 
Tholuck  quoted,  15,  22. 
Thomson,  Richard,   31,  36  sq.,  40,  42, 
62  sq.,  65,   239,  262,    264,  295-297, 
348,  350-352,  355,  408. 
Thoris,  dr.  Raphael,  263,  280, 304, 412 

417,  420,  423,  442,  468. 
Thornham,  276. 
Thou,  Christophe  de,  116. 
Thou,  J.  A.  de,  letters  of  Casaubon  to, 
1,  38,   190,  293,  363  sq.,  350,  352, 
374i   377i    428 ;    characterised,  59 ; 
his  Mt'siory,  ib.  ;  70,  99,  1 14-120 ;  his 
library,  120;    139,  1465^.;  death  of 
his  wife,  155  ;  164,  177  sq.,  180, 198, 
205  s?.,  235,  241,  245,  252,  261,  275, 
281  sq.,  285,  299,  306,  361,  378,  381, 
400,  410,  452,  465,  480. 
Thucydides,  32. 
Thurot,  d.,  469. 
Thursfield,  J.  R.,  469. 
Tilenus,  Daniel,  222,  225. 
Tillesley,  Richard,  376. 
Tindall,  Humphrey  (dean  of  Ely),  348. 
Tocqueville,  H.  A.  de,  337,  438. 
Toleto,  Fr.,  399. 
Tollius.  Jacobus,  150,  458. 
Torrentius,  L.,  457. 
Tossanus,  Daniel,  23,  73. 
Tostati,  A.,  346. 
Touching  for  the  evil,  443. 
Toulouse,   faculty  of  law  at,  in  1598, 
78;  95;   book  collectors  at,  in  1597, 


98  ;  fanaticism  at,  112  ;  greek  books 

printed  at,  133  ;    161,  169. 
Tournes,  de  (printers),  39,  114. 
Tournon,  161. 
Tours,  115. 

Tower  records,  the,  358. 
Townsend,  Aurelian,  234. 
Travelling  in  France,  c.  1600,  148-150, 

205. 
Trent,  council  of,  223. 
Triopian  inscription,  the,  463. 
Tubingen,  65  sq. 
Turnebus,  A.,  158,  171,  200,  331,  428, 

453- 
Turquet,  Theodore  ;  see  Mayerne. 
Turquois  (of  Orleans),  150. 
Tusan,  — ,  158. 

Twelve  tables,  laws  of  the,  100. 
Twisse,  W.,  369,  371. 
Tyrwhitt,  T.,  155. 
Tzschucke,  C.  H.,  459. 

U. 

Ulpianus,  100. 
Ursinus,  Fulvius,  199,  482. 
Utrecht,  20. 

Uytenbogaert,  John,  20,  222  ;  confer- 
ence with  Casaubon,  222-225. 

V. 

'  Vaches  a  Colas,'  211: 

Vair,  Guillaumedu,  118. 

Valence,  174. 

Valla,  Laurentius,  335. 

Valois,  Henri,  200,  462. 

Vandermyle,  — ,  257. 

Vanini,  Lucilio,  112,  371. 

Varanda,  dr.,  244,  412, 

Vassan,  — ,  146,  246. 

Vatable,  Fr.,  158. 

Vatican  archives,  the,  324, 327 ;  library, 

182,  185  ;  press,  324. 
Venice,  republic   of,  194  sq.,  197  ;    8, 

35.  37.  225,  253-256,  267, 380. 
Ventadour,  due  de,  106. 
Verchant  (of  Montpellier),  106. 
Vergecio,  35,  182,  185. 
Vergil,  no,  450. 
Vertunien,  — ,  6,  48,  194. 
Vervins,  peace  of,  18. 
Vic,    Meric  de,   entertains  Casaubon, 

114;  takes  him  to  Paris,  114,  120, 

122  sqq.  ;   126  sq.,  130,  134,  147  sq., 

153,  259,  318. 
—  madame  de,  114,  124,  130,  148. 
Victorius,  Petrus,  4525?.,  481. 
Vienna,  prices  at,  41. 
Vigilius,  pope,  330. 
Vignon,  E.,  27,  475  s?. 


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504 


INDEX. 


Villebonne,  205  sq. 

Villeroy,  177  sy.,  196,  236,  281. 

Villiers,  George,  duke  of  Buckingham, 

284. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  423. 
Voltaire,  10,  136,  284,  383. 
Voorst,  Adolph,  256. 
Vorstius,  Conradus,  273,  309,  446. 
Voss,  G.  J.,  256,  339,  363,  397. 
Vulcanius,  B.,  257,  453. 
Vulteius,  J.,  458,  476. 

W. 

Wake,  Isaac,  Rex  Plaionicus,  364. 

Wakefield,  Robert,  363. 

Walpole,  Horace,  360. 

Walton,  Isaac,  41,  255,  419. 

Ware,  383. 

Warton,  Joseph,  198. 

Waterland,  bishop  Daniel,  332. 

Wechel,  A.,  201,  479. 

Wedderburn,  James,  373,  388,  409. 

Wells,  444. 

Welser,  Marc,  218,  396,  399  sq.,  463. 

Westminster,  282  ;  —  school,  299. 

Whitaker,  dr.  William,  349  sq. 

Whitgift,  archbishop  John,  in. 

Willems,  Hadrian,  237  sq. 

William     I    (the    Silent),    Prince    of 

Orange,  21,  139,  249. 
Winwood,  Sir  Ralph,  Memorials,  270 

sq.,  273,  281,  313. 
Wisbech,  348  sqq. 
Wittenberg,  425. 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  39,  459. 


Wolf,  J.  C,  340,  425,  429  sq.,  482. 

Wolzius,  Seb.,  483. 

Wood,   Anthony,   294  sq.,   298,    339; 

355.  366,  371.  376. 
Wotton,  sir  Edward,  302. 

—  sir  Henry,  arrives  at  Geneva,  and 
lodges  with  Casaubon,  leaving 
in  his  debt,  40-42  ;  described  by 
Walton,  41  ;  255,  264,  296,  299  ; 
estrangement  between  Wotton  and 
Casaubon,  379-381. 

—  Thomas,  lord,  of  Marley,  273  sqq., 
281. 

Wouveren,  John  a,  85. 
Wyttenbach,    Daniel,    423,   435,   439, 
449- 

X. 

Xylander  (Holtzmann),  W.,  9. 


Yorke,  bishop  James,  347. 
Young,  Patrick,  234,  429. 


Zeller,  E.,  465. 

Zelter,  K.  F.,  471. 

Zeno,  439. 

Zigabenus,  Euthymius,  363. 

Zonaras'  Lexicon,  296. 

Zouch,  Edward  lord,  40. 

Zurich,  II,  19  sq. 


ERRATA 

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CANONICO  CANTUARIENSr 
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ESSAYS 

BY   THE    LATP 

MARK     PATTISON 

SOMETIME  RECTOR  OF  LINCOLN  COLLEGE 
COLLECTED  AXn    ARRANGED 

HENRY  -NETTLESHIP,    U.K. 

CORrUS    PROFESSOR   OF   LATIN    IN  THE   UNIVF.RSITY  OF    OXFORD 


CONTENTS   OF  VOLUME   I 

Gregory  of  Tours. 

Early  Intercourse  of  England  and  Germany. 

Antecedents  of  the  Reformation. 

The  Stephenses. 

MURETUS. 

Joseph  Scaliger. 

Life  of  Joseph  Scaliger  (Fragment). 

Peter  Daniel  Huet. 

A  Chapter  of  University  History. 

F.  A.  Wolf. 

Oxford  Studies. 


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CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME   II 

Calvin  at  Geneva. 

Tendencies  of  Religious  Thought  in  England,  1688-1750. 

Life  of  Bishop  Warburton. 

The  Calas  Tragedy. 

Present  State  of  Theology  in  Germany  {1857), 

Learning  in  the  Church  of  England. 

Philanthropic  Societies  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne. 

Life  of  Montaigne. 

Pope  and  his  Editors. 

Buckle's  History  of  Civilisation  in  England. 

Index  of  Names. 


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WORKS 

OF 

THE  LATE  MARK  PATTISON 


Translation  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas'  Commentary  on 
St.  Matthew.     (' Catena  Aurea.')     Oxford,  1841.     8vo. 


Suggestions   on  Academical    Organisation,   with 

especial  reference  to  Oxford.     Edinburgh,  1868.     8vo. 


Isaac  Casaubon,  1559-1614.     London,  1875.     8vo. 
Second  Edition.     Oxford,  1892.     8vo. 


Review  of  the  Situation    ('Essays  on  the  Endow- 
ment of  Research.')     London,  1876.     8vo. 


Milton.      ('English   Men   of  Letters.')     London,    1879. 

Svo. 

The  Sonnets  of  John  Milton.    ('Parchment  Library.') 
London,  1883.     Svo. 


Memoirs.     London,  1885.     8vo. 


Sermons.     London,  1885.     8vo. 


Essays     Oxford,  1889.     3  vols.     8vo. 


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